Claudia Huber, right, died from an accidental gunshot wound from a bullet fired by her husband Matthias Liniger, left, who was trying to save her from a grizzly bear attack, Yukon’s chief coroner said Wednesday. (Facebook)

Claudia Huber, right, died from an accidental gunshot wound from a bullet fired by her husband Matthias Liniger, left, who was trying to save her from a grizzly bear attack, Yukon’s chief coroner said Wednesday.
Photo Credit: (Facebook)

Yukon woman killed by bullet husband fired to stop grizzly attack: coroner

A Swiss-born woman living in Canada’s northern Yukon Territory died from a stray bullet fired by her husband trying to kill a grizzly bear that was mauling her outside their home, according to a coroner’s report released Wednesday.

Matthias Liniger fired several rounds at the bear, as it dragged Claudia Huber several meters into the woods near their home in Johnson’s Crossing, about 130 kilometres southeast of territorial capital Whitehorse, on October 18, 2014.

Liniger eventually managed to kill the bear and drove his severely injured wife to a community health centre about 50 kilometres away, where she was pronounced dead.

However, it was only during the autopsy that the medical examiner discovered a rifle bullet lodged in her chest.

“The wound was somewhat atypical and suggested that the bullet passed through an intermediate target,” said the coroner’s report.

(click here to listen to the interview with Yukon’s chief coroner Kirsten Macdonald)

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The necropsy of the bear showed it had been shot twice, but investigators found a third bullet ricocheted off a nearby poplar tree and struck Huber in the chest as the bear was on top of her.

“What transpired at that property on that day was an absolute, catastrophic collision of events,” Kirsten Macdonald, Yukon’s chief coroner, told RCI Thursday. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong.”

Speaking to the CBC Wednesday Liniger said reading the coroner’s report brought back painful memories of that day. The accident changed his whole life, Liniger said in an interview with CBC journalist Cheryl Khawaja. But he said the report’s release will bring him closure.

(click here to listen to a segment of Matthias Liniger’s interview with CBC’s Cheryl Khawaja)

Listen

“I had two choices: either I go into the woods and leave myself to the wolves or I move on,” Liniger said, fighting back tears. “And, Claudia is a person who would have kicked my butt and said, ‘You’d better move on.’ And she gave me signs to move on.”

‘My bullet killed her’

The incident started when the couple’s dog, an Alaskan malamute named Kona, started barking frantically, alerting Liniger to the bear’s presence.

 Investigators say the bear crashed through the front window of Liniger and Huber’s house. (Cheryl Kawaja/CBC)
Investigators say the bear crashed through the front window of Liniger and Huber’s house. © (Cheryl Kawaja/CBC)

The animal approached a window and put its paws on the glass, forcing it to give way. The bear then tumbled into the house and chased Huber and the dog out.

The 42-year-old woman took refuge in a Toyota Tundra SUV parked outside and Liniger got inside a second vehicle parked nearby. The bear repeatedly jumped on the hood of the vehicle Huber was in.

Liniger honked the horn of his vehicle, which caused the bear to run away.

Investigators believe Huber, who had the keys for the other car, tried make a break for the vehicle Liniger was in, but the 38-year-old bear caught up with her.

The 170-kilogramm bear attacked her, dragging her into the nearby woods and Liniger ran to the house to get his gun. He fired several shots at the bear before running back inside for more ammunition. He fired more shots at the bear, eventually killing it.

Liniger said it’s overwhelming to learn he fired the shot that killed his wife.

“To realize that or to see black on white that it was a bullet that I fired didn’t make me feel I killed her, it wasn’t that,” Liniger said. “It was more like what’s next? What else?”

Macdonald said Liniger shouldn’t blame himself and that he did everything to save Huber.

“Let’s be clear. This bear was actively attacking her. Had her spouse not shot and killed the bear the attack would have continued,” Macdonald said. “He did exactly what he should have done and what happened that day was a catastrophic collision of events.”

Better education

Macdonald said her report makes two recommendations. Her first recommendation is to better educate Yukon residents about appropriate responses to bear encounters.

The investigation found that Huber tried to play dead during the attack. That was the wrong approach for a predatory bear, she said.

“There is a misunderstanding in the public in Yukon about how to appropriately react to different types of bear encounters,” said Macdonald. “A predatory attack requires the victim to fight back against the bear.”

Macdonald also urged more information for people in remote areas about the risks of leaving food and other things that attract animals around their property.

Macdonald said the same bear had ransacked a hunting cabin few weeks before the attack on Huber where it managed to find a lot of food left inside.

Dashed dreams

Huber and Liniger moved to Canada from Switzerland in 2006, five years after they bought the property during their first visit to Yukon.

“We just knew we were going to live here,” Liniger told Maclean’s magazine in January.

The couple ran a small outfitting business. Huber loved the outdoors and the canoe trips they took, Liniger told the magazine.

“It was like paid vacation,” Liniger said. “You come around a corner and see a moose or a bear on the shore.”

In 2013, they became Canadian citizens.

“Claudia, she’ll be always with me, she is everywhere, she’s in the Northern lights or the ravens or anywhere,” he told CBC.

With files from CBC News

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