She had an unexpected visitor — on her roof. And it was … a polar bear?! Yep, a polar bear
CBC
Bobbi Stevens of St. Anthony, N.L., says she was completely unaware of the polar bear sitting on the roof of her Northern Peninsula home Sunday evening.
It was probably for the best.
"My dog came and jumped on me and then took off running, so I thought there was somebody at the door," Stevens told CBC News on Monday. "I opened the top part of the door and looked out, and when I looked up on the bank above my steps this polar bear was looking me in the face."
Stevens said she got quite the scare from the bear, who climbed onto and off her roof using a tall snow bank, seen in security video from her neighbour's house. Stevens said she's thankful the bear didn't damage her roof.
"My roof's not that strong and I only have one door on this house.… One less nail and he might have come through," she said. "I'm just glad I didn't know he was there when he was there."
The incident is the latest in a number of recent polar bear sightings on the north coast of Newfoundland and in Labrador. Agnes McCarthy of Goose Cove, also on the Northern Peninsula, got a close look at two polar bears as they took a walk through her driveway — one of them checking out a neighbour's house and then returning.
WATCH: A polar bear jumps onto Bobbi Stevens's roof as it explores St. Anthony:
"He went across the road over to another house around there, then it came back again. I was out in the door with two pans," McCarthy said, laughing.
She said other residents on her street were working to move their bears out of the area, with one resident even shooting a gun into the air to scare the bears away. The RCMP are asking residents to keep their distance from the bears if they see one and call police or wildlife conservation officers.
McCarthy said polar bears show up in the area every year but she has never seen one approach a house in the way the two bears did.
"This year it seems like they're getting braver," she said.
"I takes my patio table and jams it up against my outside door. I puts the chairs from the table all out in the porch, and my front door I puts a wheelchair there and locks it. I don't know what I'll do tonight — probably put the table, the chesterfield and the whole set up there."
Jeffrey Keefe has been a polar bear guard in Black Tickle in southern Labrador for over two decades, working with the Canadian Rangers to keep an eye on polar bears when they come into town.
He said the bears find their way into the region as they travel on sea ice, often finding their way into communities through their own curiosity.
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