A two-year-old bear cub was shot and killed in Canby, Oregon — while the agency equipped to handle it was still in transit.

The cub had been spotted earlier in the week running through a Newberg neighborhood. On Saturday morning, officers tracked it to a private property in Canby, where it climbed into a tree. Police from multiple agencies responded — but not one of them had a tranquilizer dart. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was called and was on its way.

While officers waited, crowds gathered from the nearby Canby Saturday Market and Clackamas County Fairgrounds. When the cub began to climb down from the tree, authorities made the decision to shoot and kill it, citing public health and safety concerns.

ODFW never got the chance to try.

The bear was a cub. It was treed on private property. Wildlife officials trained and equipped to handle exactly this situation were already responding. The public deserves to know why lethal force was used before those officials arrived and whether every non-lethal option was genuinely exhausted.

A bear cub climbing down from a tree while a crowd gathers is a crowd management problem and a wildlife management problem. It did not have to end with a dead animal.

Sign this petition to demand Oregon wildlife officials provide a full public accounting of the decision to use lethal force in Canby and review protocols for wildlife responses in populated areas.

Photo: Courtesy John Smith for KOIN