When Curtis Pirie’s bike chain went loose and he had to cycle to the other side of the road, he could hardly believe his eyes.
It was only an hour earlier that his wife showed him a photo of a bear on social media in their small community of Oliver, B.C.
“All of the sudden in the corner of my eye I see this animal, walking through an orchard…. I had to take a double look because at first I couldn’t recognize what it was. But as it got closer I realized, that was the bear my wife was talking about and showed me,” he said.
The yearling had a large stove pipe stuck on its head, and was pacing back and forth in a fenced orchard. Pirie grabbed his neighbour and they attempted to pull the pipe off the bear’s head.
“We thought if the got on either side of the bear and came sideways maybe we could grab the pipe and pull it off ourselves. Well, that didn’t work out too good,” Pirie laughed.
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Pirie said the bear ran up a large tree. His wife called the B.C. Conservation Officer Service and Pirie and his neighbour stayed with the bear for over two hours.
When conservation officers arrived from Kelowna they tranquilized the bear.
“It took about five minutes for the medicine to kick in and then he was out. But once that happened he was stuck in the tree.”
Pirie, his neighbour, and the conservation officers eventually grabbed a large pole, and poked the bear until it made its way to the ground. He said officers then removed the pipe from the bear’s head.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service tells CBC News they began receiving numerous calls about the bear about 10 days prior. But the bear took off on them twice.
“Then all of a sudden last Saturday morning, the bear showed up around the golf course in the Fairview Road area in Oliver, and we got multiple calls coming in about this bear in plain view banging into vehicles, banging into structures,” said Sgt. James Zucchelli.
The conservation service said the bear appeared thin, and it is unclear if it was able to eat anything during the roughly 10 days the pipe was on its head.
“It was definitely drinking. So, it was observed by an irrigation ditch, so it was able to dip its head in water,” said Zucchelli.
The conservation service said the black bear was still healthy despite its thin appearance, so they were able to relocate it back into the woods near Oliver.
It’s unknown how the bear got the pipe stuck on its head, but Zucchelli said it is a good reminder to keep attractants away and to always contact the service if you see an animal in a similar situation.
