Door-crashing black bear seen on social media euthanized by conservation officers in North Vancouver

A black bear seen on social media chomping on food taken from the fridge of a North Vancouver home has been killed by conservation officers.

In a Facebook post on Friday, the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said that the bear, which features in a well-viewed TikTok post, had become conditioned to non-natural food, tried numerous times to enter homes, and showed little fear of humans.

The service said it tried to trap the bear, but was unable to. On Thursday, it was put down after showing a minimal fear of people after yet again entering a home, and seen trying to enter another.

"Putting down any bear is an unfortunate outcome that we work so hard to prevent," reads the post.

"Unfortunately, the sad reality is that when people do not take precautions to properly secure attractants, it often leads to bears being put down in order to keep people safe."

Earlier this week, a post on TikTok, viewed millions of times, shows the bear sitting on the step of a home eating food pilfered from a fridge.

The poster, DadKnowsEverything, showed the bear at the entrance to the home, with the door open.

He aims the camera at the bear, which gets up to move as he closes the door.

"Hey buddy I'm just going to close this," he says in the video.

He later shows a fridge door ajar, with items strewn across a hallway.

"So that bear got in the fridge," he added after a laugh.

The Conservation Officer Service said it worked with local bylaw officers to try and stop residents from leaving attractants around, such as unsecured garbage.

The service said fines could be issued under B.C.'s Wildlife Act for leaving attractants where people are, that could attract wildlife and led them to become a threat to human safety.

In the meantime, the service is asking residents to take steps to secure garbage and not leave anything out around their homes that might attract bears and cause them to become habituated to eating human food.

"The Conservation Officer Service works hard to minimize human-wildlife conflict across the province but we can't do it alone," reads the post.

"Securing your garbage is the best way to help keep people, and bears, safe."

According to statistics from the province, in September 2021, conservation officers responded to 508 calls for human-wildlife conflicts involving black bears and destroyed 142 of the animals. Ten animals were relocated while 10 cubs where sent to rehabilitation centres.