But if you are attacked by a black bear, according to the province’s designated bear expert, you must fight — quite literally — for your life. “You’d want to defend yourself,” stressed Elizabeth O’Hara, the recently-crowned Provincial Bear Biologist who monitors black bear populations across the province. Tragically, as a spate of fatal bear attacks in northern Saskatchewan indicate, everything you’ve got is not always enough. Those three fatalities from May to July equal half of Saskatchewan’s six bear-related human deaths on record. Saskatchewan’s black bear population is stable, O’Hara said, with some areas seeing more bear calls than normal and some less.