Tyler Miiller observed something he won’t soon forget while at work on June 1.
Miiller, who lives in Estevan and works in the southeast oilpatch for Estevan Meter, spotted a black bear about 10 kilometres west of Highway 47, just north of the 705 grid road that runs from Halbrite to north of Benson.
He’s originally from the Lloydminster area, and there are quite a few bears in that area, but he was shocked when he saw one in southeast Saskatchewan.
“I wasn’t expecting to see a black bear this close to home anyways,” Miiller told Pipeline News.
Once he saw the bear, he stopped his truck, backed up and took some pictures.
“I watched him for a little bit,” Miiller said.
The animal was about 150 metres away, and Miiller has had closer encounters with the species, so he wasn’t frightened when he saw the animal. Despite the distance, he was able to make a positive identification of a bear right away. And he was next to the truck.
In fact, he believes the bear was more afraid of him than he was of the animal.
“When he saw me backing up, he started trying to run for cover,” said Miiller.
The bear started to head southeast and then moved northeast. There have been reports of bears in the Stoughton area and the Fillmore area recently, but Miiller said this bear seemed to be bigger than the one seen in Fillmore.
