Search crews are scouring a large area near Merritt looking for a missing cowboy.
Merritt RCMP Cst. Tracey Dunsmore says the search began Monday afternoon not long after a horse with a saddle was found near Mamette Lake, towards Logan Lake.
The Nicola Ranch has identified the missing man as 32-year-old Ben Tyner, who works as a manager at the ranch.
“It’s believed that he rode out from the ranch and headed out to the hills north of Merritt… It’s a large area to cover,” Dunsmore says.
“In hindsight, the owner of the horse was on days off. So he wasn’t expected to be in work and he hadn’t told anybody he was going out. We’re unclear at this point whether he had ridden out Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, or even what his destination was.”
Jen Stahn with Kamloops Search and Rescue says a Level 2 Search and Rescue Manager is helping run the search today, January 30.
“So a Level 2 manager is somebody who handles the task when they become a little bit larger or go into multi-day,” she said. “The main area that we’ve been looking at is the Swakum Ridge, which is quite a large area north of Merritt. I anticipate a large amount of the searching will occur in that same area again.”
More than three-dozen search members from around B.C. have been looking for Tyner since Monday, including members from teams in Kamloops, Merritt, Penticton, Princeton, Logan Lake, the Central Okanagan, Shuswap, Chilliwack and Surrey.
Dunsmore says search teams are covering as much ground as they can but she says there are challenges.
“Because of active logging in the area, some of the roads were graded after the report was made. So we lost some of the track in those areas. As well as lots of wildlife in the area and wild horses. So it makes it hard to kind of differentiate between wild horse track and the track that we’re looking for.”
She adds the Tyner’s family has been notified of the search. Police shared his age but didn’t share his name for privacy reasons.
Mounties ask anyone who saw a man riding a horse on the weekend in the Swakum Ridge area, where Tyner is believed to disappeared, to reach out to them.
The missing cowboy is now being identified as Ben Tyner, as confirmed by the Nicola Ranch. His family has flown in to take part in the search. @RadioNLNews #Kamloops #Merritt pic.twitter.com/7hrFYC5q1x
— Colton Davies (@ColtonDavies_) January 30, 2019
– With files from Victor Kaisar