Alert about polar bear ended on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula

Wildlife protection officers neutralized the bear but still don’t know how it reached the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

Article content

Around 9 am on Sunday, the Sûreté du Québec indicated that the bear had been neutralized by wildlife protection officers.

According to multiple sources, the polar bear was put down.

On Saturday, the province’s wildlife protection agency had been at a loss to explain how a polar bear had shown up on the peninsula, forcing residents to stay indoors until it was captured.

Sylvain Marois, southeast district commander at the province’s wildlife protection agency, said on Saturday that his team knew where the bear was but that the operation was delicate because of the animal’s unpredictable nature — all the more so because this was not its natural habitat. He has warned the public to beware of the bear, which is a natural predator.

He said the bear may have taken advantage of ice floes to cross the St. Lawrence River. As far as Marois was aware, this was the first time wildlife protection officers had observed a polar bear on the river’s south shore.

A polar bear was spotted in the Minganie Regional County Municipality earlier this month, more than 200 kilometers northeast of Madeleine-Centre.