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Part 3 of our series saluting B.C.’s best animals of 2019 focuses on the province’s most infamous invasive species: bears. And we break from tradition for this one, saluting not the best bears in B.C. but the worst, since bears mostly make the news for their misdeeds — they are truly bad news bears — and one of the bears on this list bit off a kid’s fingertip. The child survived, as did the bear, which is remarkable since most bears that venture into the human world are destroyed.

All five of the bears on this list survived, which is award-worthy in its own right, as the number of bears put down by B.C. conservation officers this year alone surpassed 500 — a 40 per cent spike from 2018. It’s a remarkable statistic, since bears have killed just 17 British Columbians in the last 20 years, leaving one to wonder who really threatens whom here.

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But don’t you go siding with the bears. In June, three Coquitlam residents were arrested for obstruction of justice after allegedly trying to help a trio of bears escape conservation officers. One can only hope the residents were actually the bears in clever disguises. You laugh, but bears are capable of more than you think. One of the bears on this list broke into a car.