When Michael and Jacqueline Kellam woke up to find two of their car doors open, they assumed people had broken in. When they investigated further they realized it was actually just the bears returning for a second night.
On Dec. 3, the couple was awakened around 3:45 a.m. by their dog barking and when they went to investigate they found bears inside their house.
READ MORE: ‘You never really expect to see a bear in your house’: Nanaimo couple wakes to furry intruder
Then the next morning, they woke to find another surprise.
“We have a truck outside our bedroom window and the door was wide open. And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, now we’ve had a thief coming around,'” Michael said.
“As I left the bathroom and went down the hall, I could see our other two vehicles which are all parked outside, and they all had a door open. And I’m like, ‘great. Not only do we have bears now we’ve got thieves crawling around, looking for things.’ So put on my clothes and boots and went outside, and remarkably, nothing seemed to be missing from any of the vehicles.”
Michael texted his neighbours to ask if they had their cars broken into, and one neighbour responded saying the same thing and both assumed it was people breaking in.
“Upon further inspection, our neighbor had a $5 bill sitting on their dashboard that was still there,” Michael said. “Inside my car, my sunglasses were chewed up, some other things had clearly been chewed up with lots of snow throughout. So it was the bears. Not only did they get through our pet door, now they’re actually opening car doors.”
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- Chewed items and snow was found in the vehicles that had doors left open on Dec. 4, 2022. (Michael Kellam)
Because the bears had gotten in through the pet door the night before, Michael had covered and secured it. He went to check security footage to see if it caught the bears, and on it he saw his handiwork being tested.
“On the security camera, they were at our backdoor for about half an hour. And you can see them pawing the [pet door] trying to get back in,” Michael said.
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The couple contact the conservation officers who recommended they make sure everything is locked to prevent the bears from breaking in again.
Conservation officers have set a live trap for the bears and will come back to the house to assess if it needs to be moved, and Jacqueline says she hopes the bears can be relocated.
“We’ve watched this mama and her two babies for the last year or so in the area, and it’s just been lovely to kind of watch them grow up a little,” Jacqueline said. “My hope is that all three of them will go into the trap, and then they can all be relocated together. I think that’s probably the best case scenario.”
Now that the bears have broken into the house and multiple cars, Michael is wondering about their backstory.
“I’m curious if there’s any reports of escaped circus bears, because they seem to be very talented,” he joked.
Laura Brougham
