'It's pretty shocking': Black bear visits East Vancouver neighbourhood

A black bear made a rare appearance in an East Vancouver neighbourhood Friday morning.

The wayward animal was spotted on Turner Street at Victoria Drive, strolling through the neighbourhood.

Employees at a nearby grocery store, Bosa Foods, got a front-row seat to the action.

“It had climbed the tree, the Huckleberry tree, and it was just eating the berries," said employee Samuel Dean McCuaig.

"So a bunch of people just gathered around the deli and everybody was watching."

Shortly after, McCuaig saw the bear climb down the tree and walk towards Ferndale Street.

That’s where Annie Hewitt noticed the furry visitor, who had climbed a massive tree at that point, drawing the attention of a murder of crows.

“All of these crows, like, 150 of them, were just cawing in the sky and I walked over to see what was happening and I looked up in this tree and lo and behold, there was a bear,” Hewitt said. “This is just off Commercial Drive. It's pretty shocking.”

Around the same time, its sibling was spotted up a tree near the BCIT campus in Burnaby, the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said in a statement Friday night.

The service determined they’re both subadult bears, meaning they’re old enough to be independent from their mother but not yet sexually mature.

Officers tranquilized both bears from their respective trees.

The BCCOS said the bears were being returned to the woods, but didn’t specify where.

“Conservation officers consulted with wildlife biologists to assess the condition of the bears," its statement read.

"The COS determined there was no aggressive or conflict behaviour associated to these bears. Both bears will be held overnight and relocated to a wilderness location outside of the city."

McCuaig said a small crowd gathered to watch the East Vancouver bear, adding it was a jubilant scene.

“It was quite cute when they put him in the back of the carriage there. Saw his little tongue poking out of his mouth,” he said. “Everybody was clapping. It was quite an eventful lunch.”

Templeton Secondary School is just two blocks east of where the bear was spotted.

“We kept PE classes indoors for the afternoon but no other impact,” wrote Raza Mirani, the school’s principal, in an email to CTV News.

It’s unclear how the black bears got to East Vancouver and Burnaby.

The BCCOS said while it is uncommon, bears have occasionally wandered into busy urban areas across the Lower Mainland.