Watch: Bear cub rescued from middle of Canada's Okanagan lake after exhausting swim: "He was absolutely shaking, never seen anything like it"

In a heartwarming gesture, boaters successfully rescued a bear cub from the middle of Okanagan Lake and the incident has gone viral on social media. At the first glance, it was difficult for Christina Zamniuk to believe that a small bear cub, exhausted, climbed and was shivering onto her boat in the middle of Okanagan Lake. Zamniuk, who was spending time in the summer with her husband at their Vernon lake house, said they were out on the water heading towards Adventure Bay Saturday afternoon, September 12, when they noticed something black in the water, as per local media reports.

“I think he thought it was a dog,” she said of her husband after they’d pulled the boat closer. “We were just like, wait a minute, that’s a little bear.” Zamniuk said the cub’s hind legs were out behind it and it was paddling with only its front paws, apparently exhausted.

“His little nose kept going under and then blowing bubbles,” she said. After having a conversation with her husband and her son-in-law, they decided the bear had to be saved. She said she felt a panicked sense of urgency to get the bear out of the water before it drowned.


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“We took a rope and made a noose and we got close enough to him and we were able to put it around his neck and pull him around to the side of the boat to the back, and brought him onto the back platform,” Zamniuk said. “He got right up there and he was absolutely shaking. He was freezing cold. So we just let him dry off, and then we gave him some Cheetos.”

Christina Zamniuk captures video of bear being rescued

Zamniuk captured video of the rescue on her phone which shows the bear climbing onto the boat’s rear platform. Munching on Cheetos, the bear was clearly hungry, cold and scared, Zamniuk said. They immediately called the B.C. Conservation Officer Service who instructed the family not to touch the bear (advice they heeded) and to get it on the shore and let it go off.

“This is a really tiny little bear, he needs to be with his mom or somebody has to come get him. So we used a GPS and said, this is where we are,” she said. “The Conservation Officer was basically saying, just let it go and it’ll find its way. But other people say that they don’t survive when they don’t have their moms at that age.”

“He’d go a little bit and then he’d kind of go in circles and float, and he was just absolutely exhausted. I said, if we don’t get him out he’s going to die, 100 per cent,” she said. The bear briefly splashed around near the shore, made it onto land, and then ran through nearby properties toward the woods. Zamniuk believed their intervention may have saved the bear because, without their help, it might have drowned or been hit by another boat.

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“It’s crazy. I grew up in Vernon. We’ve had a place out in Vernon for the past 15 years on the lake. I have never seen anything like it.” Zamniuk hopes the cub will be able to find its mom. She knows the animals’ advanced sense of smell could help reunite them. She said she’s grateful that their boat happened to be there at the right time to give the cub that chance of survival.

“That was the biggest reward for us,” she said. “Maybe the Conservation officers will go out there and just have a look around and see if they see him,” she added.

The BC Conservation Officer Service (COS) confirmed in an email Wednesday that it received a report about the bear cub swimming in the lake, and that the boaters had left the cub on the shore. “Conservation officers have not received any conflict reports or further calls of a suspected orphaned bear cub in the area,” the service said. Conservation officers are monitoring bear activity and will respond as needed, the COS added.