Officials Search for Bear That Killed Former Juneau Resident and Daughter in British Columbia
Wildlife officials in British Columbia have set traps near Bella Coola to investigate whether a grizzly bear was responsible for the deaths of Jenny Balcarras and her 20-year-old daughter, Selah Reed. Jenny Balcarras, 48, and her daughter, Selah Reed, lost their lives in an attack that has left a remote coastal community grappling with grief and searching for answers just a year after another violent encounter on a nearby trail.
The tragedy began to unfold when Reed missed a routine Saturday night phone call with her sister. By Sunday morning, family members still had not heard from Reed or Balcarras, prompting them to contact the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to check on the family’s home in Bella Coola on British Columbia’s central coast. Officers found the house locked and Balcarras’s car missing. They eventually located the vehicle abandoned at a trailhead up the road, but both women were nowhere in sight.
Family Members Mobilize to Find Missing Relatives
Family members across Canada and the U.S. immediately mobilized. Jenny Balcarras’s brother, Matt, traveled north from Vancouver Island while another brother drove from Calgary, meeting on the road to drive through the night. They received word late Monday that their sister had been killed, likely by a grizzly bear. When they arrived at the trailhead Tuesday morning to help locate Reed, searchers had found her remains as well.
The recovery effort was severely complicated by difficult terrain and the behavior of the bear. Matt Balcarras explained that searchers located his niece’s remains in a bear cache—a spot where a bear stashes food by digging a small hole and covering it with branches and vegetation.
Even though the cache was within 100 or so meters of the trail, locating the remains proved difficult. By the time officials found Reed, she could only be identified by her clothing. Her mother was found in a similar condition, identified through several tiny tattoos.
“There’s no obvious body to identify,” he said. “The coroner’s investigation will include DNA and dental work. But there is no doubt that the remains that were found are theirs.”
Authorities Trap Bears Following Previous Trail Attacks
The fatal attack occurred only 3 to 4 kilometers from a site where a grizzly attacked a group of schoolchildren and teachers on a trail on November 20, 2025. Eleven people were injured in that encounter, two of them critically.
Jeff Tyre, an inspector with the Conservation Officer Service, noted that the aggressive bear from the 2025 attack was never captured, though officials did collect its DNA. Authorities have now set new traps to catch the bear responsible for last weekend’s attack and to determine whether it is the same animal involved a year ago, or if multiple bears were involved.
Terry Webber, chief administrative officer for the Nuxalk Nation, emphasized the heavy emotional toll the recent deaths have taken on residents. The community has implemented a curfew and mobilized mental health support services.
Terry Webber said the community is still healing and that the Nuxalk Nation’s priority is to ensure they’re safe and ensure the community is supported.
A Life Lived Closely with the Land
Balcarras worked as an art therapist and had spent years living in coastal communities, including Bella in British Columbia, as well as Prince of Wales Island and Juneau in Alaska. She had moved to Bella Coola during the summer.
Her brother remembered her as the central organizing force of their family, describing how she built a life and career as a single mother. He stressed that both Balcarras and her daughter were not naive or foolish or uninformed. They had lived in these areas and had been around animals of countless types for years and years and decades. Conservation officials stated that grizzly bears are common around Bella Coola, and while a hotline exists for reporting problem bears, no recent calls had come in prior to the attack.
