'Bold' bears at restaurant and school worry people in northern Ontario town

People in Terrace Bay, Ont., about 220 kilometres east of Thunder Bay, are speaking out about the problem of nuisance bears in their community, after provincial police killed a sow and captured her two cubs after the bears entered a restaurant at lunchtime Wednesday.

• Mother bear killed, 2 cubs captured after entering northern Ontario restaurant

"I saw a little cub come out of the restaurant and then go back in," said Jennifer Simmer, who watched the event unfold from a hardware store across the street from the Station Two restaurant.

"They were trying to scare the mamma bear out of the restaurant, so they had one police officer go to the front of the restaurant, and he was sounding his sirens, and the next thing you know, the bear started to come out," she said.

Superior Morning8:56Terrace Bay Bears

Some who live in Terrace Bay say there are almost as many bears in town as there are people. Jeff Walters visited the town.

Police shot the mother bear while the two cubs were trapped outside the building; the cubs will be taken to a bear sanctuary.

"The bears are getting bold. They're not scared, so people are getting worried for their children," said Simmer, adding that one school had to keep the students in at recess on the first day of classes because a bear was hanging around the building.

Simmer, a long time resident of the community of 1,500 on the north shore of Lake Superior, said she's "not surprised" by either incident.

"It seems there's as many bears as people in our town."