Coquitlam Now News

Bear rips bumper off car

By Brooke Larsen - Staff Reporter

A mother bear and two cubs wreaked havoc on a Honda Civic while searching for a midnight snack early Monday.

“My bumper was ripped off the car, basically,” said Byron Moody, who parked the car at a friend’s house in the 100 block of Jacobs Road in Port Moody Sunday evening.

“There were imprints and scratches all over the roof of the car and all over the sides. [One bear] sat up on the roof of my car and dented my whole roof.”

Police arrived on the scene at about 2 a.m. Monday, after a neighbour reported seeing a mother bear and two cubs “wrestling” with the car’s bumper, Port Moody Police spokesperson Const. Phil Reid said.

“When one of our officers pulled up, the mother and two cubs left the scene,” he said, adding that police estimate the damage to the car’s bumper to be about $1,000.

Moody said he suspected a bear when he saw the car’s condition Monday morning, and said the bear was probably attracted to the garbage left in the car’s trunk.

“Half of the garbage bag was just hanging out of the trunk. I had a garbage bag full of stuff that I was going to throw away at work in the morning,” said Moody, a Coquitlam resident who works as a garbage collector in Pitt Meadows and Surrey.

He added that the bag contained mostly empty cat food cans.

“I guess it just smelled that and was trying to get whatever was left.”

Moody believes one of the bears may even have settled in for a nap at some point during the night.

“I think the bear maybe slept on the roof of my car for a little bit. That’s why there’s a nice indent right on the roof. It was definitely sitting up there doing something.”

Moody doesn’t know how much the repairs will cost, but is preparing for the worst.

“It’s minor, but it’s major, you know? It could be pretty expensive.

“I think the seal on my sunroof might be leaking and the seal on the back window’s leaking.”

A bear targeted a car and a truck parked on Coquitlam’s Coast Meridian Road last month.

The bear managed to open the truck’s canopy to get the garbage left inside, during an incident Bear Aware co-ordinator Devin Goodsman compared to “a professional break-in job,” since the bear opened the canopy without doing much damage to the truck.

Goodsman said the same bear tried, but failed, to get a bagel left inside a nearby car, and said residents should avoid leaving trash in their vehicles.

Moody said the experience taught him a lesson about leaving garbage in his car.

“I’m definitely not going to be doing that anymore,” he said, adding that he wishes he could have seen the bears himself.

“I wish I was outside watching,” he said. “It would have been pretty funny.”

published on 07/26/2006