2 bears hit a trampoline near Vancouver, only to be startled by its owner
A CBC News host was surprised to find two unlikely trampoliners in her backyard on Wednesday night.
Sarah Galashan has lived in the area for years and is no stranger to having encounters on her property, but she says it was a first to find them on her children’s play structure.
“We live right on a green belt… so it’s not unexpected,” she said in an interview.
“But we’ve never… that trampoline is always open and we’ve never seen bears climb on it.”
CBC reporter Sarah Galashan saw a rare sight when she took out her trash recently: two cubs wrestling on the family trampoline in Coquitlam, B.C.
Galashan, a presenter for CBC’s News Network, lives in Coquitlam, a mostly suburban city on the northeast side of Metro Vancouver.
In the video, she films the two bears walking – and sometimes flopping – on the trampoline. At one point, one starts chewing the net and there is also a brief moment where they wrestle with each other.
After about 20 seconds of filming, you can hear her say firmly to the bears “get out, come on!” as they swing across the bouncy surface.
“That’s right! Good, good, there you go,” she cried as one of the bears exited the trampoline through the safety net around it.
“I’m not a bear whisperer, I’m a bear screamer,” she said.
CBC’s own Sarah Galashan caught two bears playing on her backyard trampoline. In her best “mother voice,” she told the bears to scramble!
BC’s conservation service says bear encounters are to be expected when cities make contact with greenbelts, but the key is to take steps to ensure they don’t become habituated to humans.
Those steps include avoiding using bird feeders, making sure waste is inaccessible, and picking fruits and berries that may attract them to the neighborhood.
Galashan says bears are so common in the area where she lives that she no longer fears the animals when they are just passing through, and has taught her children about bear safety.
Galashan says she makes sure rubbish that might attract bears isn’t put out until just before it’s picked up.
“I know they’re not there for me, they’re just looking for food and so we’re doing everything we can to mitigate that.”
