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Peachland resident finds severed bear paw on driveway

Tracie Gordon thought it was a Halloween prank, but it turned out to be a real bear paw
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Tracie Gordon and her husband came home on Monday night, Sept. 28 to a severed bear paw on their driveway. (Tracie Gordon)

Peachland resident Tracie Gordon and her husband were coming home from a quick weekend getaway on Monday night when she saw a “fuzzy black thing” on the pile of landscaping rocks on their driveway.

At first, Gordon said she thought it was a squirrel or a cat.

But she got closer and figured it out: it was a severed bear paw, with some blood still on it and tendons sticking out.

“I thought ‘oh my god, is this a joke? Is it plastic?’. I figured it’s Halloween, and it could’ve been a joke,” she said.

“But there were tendons at the end of it and there were flies everywhere.”

She said she and her husband looked around to see if there were other animal parts nearby, but there were none. They called their neighbours to ask if they’ve seen an injured bear or even if someone or something dropped the bear paw on their property, but no one had seen anything strange.

“Honestly, it just seems like it was severed. It didn’t look like it was chewed off or anything and we’re thinking it’s from some hunter and they dropped it and maybe another animal took it.”

“It’s just really weird that it was in the middle of my driveway.”

Gordon said she reached out to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service and is waiting to hear back.

Black Press Media has reached out to the service as well. We will update this story as more information becomes available.

READ: Bear sightings five times more frequent than usual in West Kelowna


Twila Amato
Video journalist, Black Press Okanagan
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Twila Amato

About the Author: Twila Amato

Twila was a radio reporter based in northern Vancouver Island. She won the Jack Webster Student Journalism Award while at BCIT and received a degree in ancient and modern Greek history from McGill University.
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