Man Convicted of Killing Black Bear and Cub After Neighboring Airbnb Guests Film Backyard Incident

A Canadian man was found guilty of fatally shooting a black bear and her cub after his claim of self-defense was rebutted by a man staying at a neighboring property.

Ryan Owen Millar was found guilty of killing a black bear outside of hunting season, as well as killing a black bear younger than two years old, or a black bear in the company of it, by a provincial court judge in British Columbia, according to CTV News.

“Mr. Millar simply wanted to kill the two bears, and that is what he did,” Judge Alexander Wolf reportedly said, adding that Millar made “absolutely no attempt to minimize the harm caused.”

The killings occurred in Tofino on Vancouver Island — approximately 175 miles west of Vancouver — in October 2021, when a witness and his wife were staying as Airbnb guests at a neighboring property.

A man, who is not named in the CTV report, testified that he and his wife were relaxing in the rental’s hot tub when they heard a commotion and saw two bears about 15 feet up in a tree.

After getting a better view, the couple saw Millar look at the bears, leave, then return with both a longbow and a crossbow, the witness reportedly testified.

Millar shot the smaller bear out of the tree with the longbow, then walked over to it and shot it again with the crossbow, the witness testified.

As the larger bear looked on from the tree, Millar shot it as well with the longbow, knocking it to the ground, according to the witness.

The wounded adult bear tried to flee, but Millar shot it again, the witness said.

The witness recorded video of Millar picking up the smaller bear and putting it under a tarp, then called the police, according to CTV.

Under questioning by police and a conservation officer, Millar gave a series of contradictory accounts about what happened.

Asked if he had information about a bear being shot, Millar initially said that he “didn't know anything about it," the first officer on scene reportedly testified.

Pressed on his denial, Millar then acknowledged that there was one bear, which he believed was drawn by deer meat that he alternately said was outside on his property and inside a cooler in a locked shed.

He told police that he tried to scare the creature off, then shot it when it wasn’t frightened.

After Millar’s initial interview with police, a white diesel truck pulled into Millar’s home, was loaded up with hunting gear and the carcass of the small bear, then left, the witness staying at the Airbnb testified.

Under later questioning by a conservation officer, Millar said that he got his bow “for defense” because he was unsure whether the bear was the same “problem bear” that, he said, charged him a month prior.

Millar said in that account that he yelled and threw rocks when he saw the bear "standing over the meat.” He claimed that the bear "slashed" at him and so he "let an arrow loose, um, and it stopped charging.” He described the run-in as a “near-death experience.”

He consistently denied that there was a second bear, and claimed that the one bear he did admit to seeing was on the ground, not in a tree.

Dr. Caeley Thacker, a wildlife veterinarian for British Columbia’s Fish and Wildlife Branch, reportedly testified, however, that a necropsy on the adult bear showed that at least of the four arrow wounds found were consistent with the bear being shot while high up, as in a tree.

Thacker added that the adult bear was a lactating female, which likely would have had a cub less than a year old in tow.

Though the body of the baby bear was never found, Wolf, the judge, concluded based on testimony from Thacker and the Airbnb renter’s video “that there was another smaller bear cub present and killed as well,” calling Millar’s account “fabricated.”

Millar appeared in court without a lawyer and did not provide any evidence of his own to dispute the eyewitness account.

"It was not a fair hunt," said Wolf, according to CTV. "It was not an ethical hunt. For our purposes in this trial, I conclude and find as a matter of fact it was not a legal hunt. It appears to me that Mr. Millar's only regret is that he was caught on film and seen by two witnesses."

Millar is set to be sentenced in September.