Depending on where you are in the Rockies this year, the annual summer bear season could mean black-bear sightings in your front yard or a near-death experience while looking through the jaws of a hungry bear.

Already, the list of bear attacks across the Rockies this summer is beginning to mount.

On Saturday morning, a bear attacked a homeless man sleeping in Durango near the Animas River. The man survived, but the bear didn’t after Colorado Division of Wildlife officials turned their guns on it after the attack. A necropsy of the bear’s carcass was completed at CSU.

Last Thursday, a bear broke into a home in Bailey, southwest of Denver, biting a man.

Other bears have been sighted plundering porches and backyards in Livermore and Rist Canyon.

In the past month, bears have turned outright hostile in New Mexico, where they’ve developed an affinity for tents and a taste for the people sleeping in them.

“They’re coming down and acting kind of aggressive right now,” said Dan Williams, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

New Mexico wildlife officials killed a bear at the end of June after it jumped on a tent and took a swipe at the man sleeping in it at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, a 137,000-acre camping and backpacking ranch just south of the Colorado state line west of Raton.

There were two more incidents there: The same day, another bear was found with a goat in its mouth, and a Philmont staffer killed it. On Wednesday, a bear bit a 14-year-old Boy Scout through his tent, leaving a deep gash in his head.

“It kind of peeled back the scalp there,” Williams said.

Both campers who were attacked were carefully following strict bear-safety protocols in place at Philmont, he said.

Those incidents followed another in June when a bear swatted a man tent-camping in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque.

But all the ursine nastiness in some parts of the West doesn’t mean there’s anything unusual going on this year, particularly in Colorado and Wyoming.

Bear activity is quite normal throughout Colorado, DOW spokesman Tyler Baskfield said.

The bears’ habitat is normal and healthy, he said, and there is no sign of increased bear sightings or attacks in any localized area, he said.

“We haven’t noticed anything that is different than we’ve seen in years when there’s decent, natural food,” said Ken Wilson, a professor of wildlife and conservation biology at Colorado State University.

“A bear has been into some trash cans in Rist Canyon,” he said. “One bear can decide it’s going to get into something, (but) it’s not all of them.”

Few bears have been seen at all in southern Wyoming, where wildlife officials consider black-bear habitat and natural food supply excellent, said Al Langston, spokesman for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.

In New Mexico, dry weather hurt the bears’ food supply and dried out the forbs and grass that usually get black bears through the spring.

The lack of food there is so dire that this year’s number of bear attacks hasn’t been seen in New Mexico for almost a decade, Williams said.

There are plenty of things homeowners and backcountry adventurers can do to keep bears away.

For people camping in the mountains, store food in bear-resistant containers away from your sleeping area, Wilson said.

The best way to keep plundering bears away from homes is to keep birdseed, trash and other potential food sources inside where bears can’t have easy access to them, Baskfield said.

“There’s no reason to feed birds this time of year” because natural bird food is plentiful, he said.

And, he warned city dwellers, just because you might live in Fort Collins doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your home bear resistant.

“We get bears who wander into Fort Collins on a regular basis,” he said.

via List of bear attacks this summer grows | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan.

(WHAS11) -  Tim Scott, the hiker that survived a black bear attack in Red River Gorge, sits down with WHAS11’s Claudia Coffey for his first television interview.

He allowed WHAS11 to come to his Springfield, Kentucky home where he explained how he escaped from the death grip of a black bear. He says the bear followed him along a trail in Red River Gorge, threw him 4 feet, then started chewing on his legs. Finally another hiker came to his aid.

He tells his account of what he thinking and how he tried to escape exclusively to WHAS11.

Scott survived but has 50 to 60 stitches on both legs. His story of survival in his own words, tonight at 5 and 6 p.m. on WHAS11 News and WHAS11.com.

The bear is still on the loose, and some 40,000 acres of campgrounds and trails are closed until the bear is caught.

via Black Bear attack victim shares his survival story

A camper woke to find a chunk of his ear had been bitten off by a black bear.

Rob Holmes, 24, slept as the bear entered his tent and ripped off a lump of flesh.

He found out about the attack when a friend woke him and his face was covered in blood. There were teeth marks on their tent.

Rob said: “I felt something on my face. I knew I’d been hurt but not how bad.”

Experts in Montana, US, confirmed mechanic Rob had been bitten by a black bear.

Medics used 21 stitches to reattach the chunk of flesh.

via Ear, a bear’s in our tent – mirror.co.uk.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) – Montana wildlife officials say a Washington man was injured by a black bear that bit through his tent at a primitive campsite in the Lolo National Forest in western Montana.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens say Rob Holmes of Ellensburg, Wash., was awakened at about 4:30 a.m. Monday when he felt an animal bite his ear lobe. It took 21 stitches to close the wound.

Warden Capt. Jeff Darrah says it appears the bear was drawn into the area by food and other attractants that were left at a nearby camp site.

The U.S. Forest Service campground southwest of St. Regis will be closed while officials try to capture the bear. FWP Regional Supervisor Mack Long says if they can find the bear they’ll euthanize it because it has become habituated to human food.

via Daily Record-News – Ellensburg man survives bear attack in Montana.

Food and garbage abandoned at a campsite in Mineral County likely attracted a black bear that bit a Washington man on the head early Monday, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Rob Holmes, of Ellensburg, Wash., required 21 stitches on his earlobe after the bear bit him through his tent around 4:30 a.m., as he and a friend slept up Little Joe Road just southwest of St. Regis.

Holmes’ injuries were not life-threatening, and he and his friend had left for home by Monday afternoon.

After the bear bit Holmes, the man screamed. He then grabbed a flashlight and tried to follow it before driving to a Missoula hospital.

“It reacted to people, which is good,” said Mack Long, FWP regional supervisor. “But the downside is that once it is habituated, it’s almost impossible to change.”

Holmes kept a clean camp, Long said, but other campers left behind food and other attractants at the U.S. Forest Service campground, which is “primitive” and not a sanctioned campground.

“He did everything right,” said Jeff Darrah, FWP warden captain in Missoula.

The FWP is currently attempting to track down the bear, which will be euthanized once it’s found. In the meantime, the camping area is closed until further notice.

FWP officials said the radius and patterns of the bite marks on Holmes and in his tent were identical to those found on cans of food and other items at the nearby abandoned campsite.

It is unknown how long that campsite had been abandoned, but the bear likely had visited the site for at least a couple of nights, said Long. It likely was a temporary campsite for transients, he said.

Long put all blame on the campers who abandoned their site and left food and other items behind. He said “attack” is not the correct word for the incident, which will unfortunately lead to a dead bear.

Long said he believes it is the only reported case of a human injury caused by a bear in western Montana this year.

The message is clear, he stressed: Don’t leave food and other attractants open at a campsite, and never leave food behind.

via Black bear bites through tent, into sleeping man’s ear near St. Regis.

In the aftermath of a bear attack in Far North Bicentennial Park, state wildlife biologists continued Wednesday urging city officials to close the Rover's Run trail to prevent more human-bear encounters.

Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan said the city has no intention of doing that, arguing that people should use their own judgment rather than the city stepping in and declaring the trail off-limits.

“It really becomes a good common sense thing for the public to use their good common sense when an area has been identified … when there's potential danger there,” he said.

The city has closed Rover's Run the past two summers after two bear maulings in the summer of 2008 and continuing concerns over bear encounters there. Other government agencies that manage land in Alaska, including state and federal parks, regularly have closed trails or sections of parks because of bear danger.

Black bears and the occasional grizzly are seen from time to time on trails throughout Bicentennial Park, as well as other areas of the Hillside, but Rover's Run has been problematic the past three summers. Spawning salmon in the South Fork of Campbell Creek have long attracted bears, and the narrow, bumpy dirt trail, which winds alongside the creek, can make it easy for people to surprise the animals.

Rick Sinnott, the Anchorage area biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, thinks people should avoid Rover's Run, and said he's having trouble understanding the city's rationale for not posting signs making the trail off-limits.

“The city closes trails all the time,” he said.

Tuesday morning, a 45-year-old man riding his bike to work was attacked by a grizzly sow with a cub at the east end of the trail. The bicyclist suffered a torn ear and puncture wounds to his calf, but was able to ride to the Alaska Native Medical Center for treatment. Sinnott said the biker surprised the bear, and that Fish and Game has no plans to go after the animal because it wasn't acting aggressively.

Two people were mauled in separate incidents on Rover’s Run in the summer of 2008, including a 15-year-old mountain biker who was badly mauled by a grizzly near where this week’s attack occurred.

The 2008 attacks led the city to immediately close the trail. That decision carried over to last year when the trail was shut down again for the summer, Sinnott said.

This year, under Sullivan, who took office last summer, the city changed course. Sinnott said he was in talks with the city to again close Rovers’ Run starting June 10 but that didn’t happen.

Sullivan said in an interview Wednesday that he thinks a bright colored warning sign telling people of the recent encounter is adequate. He also says the city doesn’t have the ability to enforce a closure.

Sinnott said not closing the trail is confounding to him. “Ship Creek Trail is closed because of an erosion problem,” he said. Similarly, he said, a foot bridge across Campbell Creek near where this week’s attack occurred has had a sign saying it was closed until further notice, Sinnott said. It’s ironic, he said, that the city would close the bridge but now choose to leave Rover’s Run open.

“It seems like an ideological argument, ‘We’re not going to let the bears push us around,’ ” he said.

“Some people have the theory that if you cede territory to the bears, then the bears will get bolder, and they’ll take it over.

“There’s no reason to believe that,” he said. The bears are drawn to city streams because that’s where salmon are, he said. Putting people in their paths won’t necessarily make them go away, he said. Closing the trail won’t necessarily keep people off it, he noted. But it does send a strong message that there’s potential danger in the area, he said.

There is an idea to build a new trail 100 to 200 yards south of Rover’s Run so trail users can still cross the park and link up to its northwest corner, and Sinnott said he supports that.

A recent telephone survey conducted for Fish and Game found 63 percent of Anchorage residents say it is acceptable to have brown bears in Far North Bicentennial park. The survey found 89 percent said they support temporary closures of trails at times when the risk of encountering a brown bear in the area is high.

State and federal land managers in Alaska regularly close trails when there are potential dangers, spokespeople say.

Tom Harrison, superintendent of the Chugach State Park, said it’s a subjective call. “If we anticipate a high-risk situation we will probably err on the one side (of caution),” he said.

“However,” he said, “there are bears in the woods.”

This year, the park hasn’t closed any parts or trails because of bears, Harrison said. But last year, it closed an area of Bird Point because of reports of an aggressive bear. The Albert Loop near the Eagle River Nature Center has been permanently closed in the summer for years because of a history of maulings, he said.

Morgan Warthin, spokeswoman for the National Park Service in Alaska, said closing decisions are made by park superintendents. On Tuesday, a backcountry unit in Denali National Park was temporarily closed because a bear ripped a tent, she said.

Sullivan said city parks are not state or national parks.

“Do we want our urban parks to be brown bear sanctuaries or do we want them to be places where people can recreate? … I think (that) is what the purpose of these parks were when they were created, as well as the trails.”

Sullivan said the city needs to critically examine the state’s effort to reintroduce salmon into the city’s waterways. Those fish, he said, are bringing bears into the city.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/06/16/1327231/bear-conflicts-create-dispute.html#ixzz0r5f9CBo9

via Bear encounters create dispute over trail status: Bears in Alaska | adn.com.

“At what point do you say, this is not good policy? This is a city first. It’s not a wildlife viewing area. It’s not a sanctuary. It is first and foremost an urban environment,” he said.

VAIL — Justin Young was hoping he'd see a bear while working in the Vail Valley this summer, but he never wanted to see one as close as he did last Friday.

Young, 25, was working for his father's construction business at a home in the 1500 block of Spring Hill Lane in East Vail when he took a break and took a stroll behind the home around 9 a.m. The next thing he knew he was about 20 feet from a black bear that he said weighed about 400 pounds.

“I spooked him,” Young said. “He immediately charged at me.”

Young, who lives in Florida full-time, said he feels incredibly fortunate to have survived the encounter. The bear hit him on the side of his head and again on the left side of his body before Young fell down. The bear knocked him out, he said, and when he regained consciousness the bear was gone. He got up and ran back to the house and told his coworkers what happened.

Young doubts his coworkers would have believed him if it wasn't for the bear hair.

“They assumed I fell down the stairs and was full of it, until they saw I was covered in bear hair,” Young said.

He walked away with some cuts and bruises, and a nasty black eye, but that was it.

His parents, Chuck and Terry Young, of Eagle, saw pictures of their son's cuts and bruises from his cell phone camera that morning. Terry Young said she got a picture message that said her son had quite the story to tell her.

“Now he has a whole new respect for bears,” Terry Young said.

Justin Young said he's pretty sure he scared the bear because it was facing away from him as he approached it. The bear reacted and went on the defensive, he said.

“I'm very fortunate the bear was on the defensive and not the offensive,” Justin Young said.

After the bear hit him once near his left eye and temple, he put up his arm to protect himself. The bear got a pretty good scratch at his left arm, and that's when Justin Young thinks he was knocked out.

He said he thinks his lifeless body as he laid there unconscious was what saved him. If he continued to fight back and try to protect himself, he said the bear may have done even more damage.

“It's probably good he knocked me out,” Justin Young said. “I'm glad I wasn't conscious for it.”

Justin Young said he has a lot of bruises and scratches on his body, too, which makes him think the bear continued to smack him around a bit while he was unconscious. He said the Division of Wildlife officer who responded to the scene told him a bear that size could exert 1,000 pounds of force.

The Vail Police Department responded to the call along with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. Justin Young said he refused an ambulance ride to the hospital because he felt fine and doesn't have health insurance.

“Now that it's done and over with, and I know that I'm not going to die from it, it's kind of a cool story,” Justin Young said.

Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Division of Wildlife, said the agency tracked the bear for more than 12 hours Friday and could see the bear a few times but couldn't catch him. They tracked him with hound dogs but lost the scent when the bear's trail led across asphalt, a surface much harder for dogs to smell.

“Any situation in Colorado where we deal with an aggressive animal injuring a person, the policy is typically that the animal is going to be put down,” Hampton said.

Hampton said that while it's not exactly common to hear of a bear attacking or charging at a person, it does happen several times a year in Colorado. There were three incidents last year in the Aspen-area alone where people were physically injured by bears, he said.

“That being said, it's more common to get attacked by your neighbor's dog than a bear,” Hampton said.

Hampton said he didn't have information on the size or sex of the bear that attacked Justin Young. He said 400 pounds sounds pretty large, though, for a black bear this time of year.

“What we find is that most often, because of their hair and how much hair they have it makes them appear much larger,” Hampton said. “Guessing the weight of a bear is extremely difficult.”

via Bear attacks man in East Vail | VailDaily.com.

NELSON – A recent bear attack on a four-year-old girl and her grandmother in their yard has prompted a call for diligence.

Conservation officer Len Butler killed the mature male black bear after it clawed Nine Mile resident Jane Tillotson and visiting granddaughter Megan Chapple.

The young girl required six to eight stitches on her leg following the Aug. 24 attack.

“I was babysitting my granddaughters, who are four and six, and we went out to work in my vegetable garden,” Tillotson said.

“We'd been there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes making lots of noise. My littlest granddaughter just yelled for me and I turned and looked at her and a big bear was right behind her.

“The bear swiped at her and cut the back of her calf so she fell. It looked like that bear was going to bite her.”

Tillotson said she scooped up Megan and slowly backed away from the bear with her other granddaughter right behind her.

The bear swiped at the child again, scratching Megan's belly and — though she didn't feel it at the time — Tillotson's thigh.

“I was just shrieking hysterically at the top of my lungs,” said Tillotson. “It was probably no more than a few seconds but it seemed like forever to me [before] it stopped and ambled out of the garden.”

Butler said he doesn't think the attack was predatory in nature.

“Basically the bear was there to get something to eat and these people were in the way,” he said. ” If the bear wanted to kill the little girl, [it] could have.”

When he arrived at the home, Butler said he found a “fairly large” black bear in the neighbour's compost. He had his dog chase the bear into a tree where it was shot.

Garth Mowat, the B.C. Environment Ministry's senior wildlife biologist for the Kootenay region, said it's rare for a black bear to attack and knew of only one other human-related attack by a bear in the past 18 months. “I've not heard of black bears attacking people over food very often,” he said. “There might have been something else going on.”

Mowat suggested the bear may have been afraid or it took the child for a dog that was bothering it.

A few days after the attack, Nelson police shot a black bear hunkered down in a residential area along a road frequented by school children.

Part of the problem, say wildlife experts, is people leaving garbage and compost accessible to bears.

Butler said conservation officers will be issuing more wildlife protection orders to clear garbage, compost and fallen fruit. People who don't comply could be fined $345.

via Public warned after bear attacks girl, woman.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The 2010 bear season is here, and so far the bears are paying the price for encounters with humans in the Anchorage area.

On Friday, an Eagle River homeowner killed a young black bear that sneaked into a chicken coop and killed a bird. This occurred hours after a different bear “mouthed” the leg of a girl at a neighborhood playground near Elmendorf Air Force Base.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says so far six young bears have been shot in the municipality of Anchorage – most of them in Eagle River – over roughly the past two weeks.

The attack on the chicken occurred at about 10 p.m. Friday, as George Drummond sat dozing in front of the television at his home. A neighbor banged on his door and told him there was a bear in his coop.

Drummond, 62, looked outside to see a 150-pound black bear eating his favorite chicken, an Araucana named Goldie.

Drummond said he picked up a garden hose, set it on “jet” and sprayed.

“I was squirting it in the head and the face, and it just looked at me,” he said.

He then fired his tiny .25-caliber handgun four times into the ground to scare the animal away. The bear moved toward his neighbor, Drummond said.

“It kind of made an advance towards him. So he gave it a couple shots with the .45,” he said.

Dying, the bear crossed the road where Drummond said he killed it with two more gun shots from the .25.

A ranger also shot a black bear at the Eagle River Nature Center on Friday, said Department of Fish and Game area biologist Greg Sinnott. “It was trying to get in all the doors and couldn't be driven away.”

A black bear also reportedly walked up to four girls at a playground in the Moose Crossing military housing between Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson, said Elmendorf Deputy Public Affairs Officer Stephen Lee.

“Three of them, I'm told, hit the ground, to kind of just play dead,” Lee said.

The fourth girl stood and talked to the bear, “Trying to make herself as big as possible to scare the bear away,” he said.

The bear, which looked to be about 3 years old, approached one of the girls who was laying down and “mouthed” her leg, Lee said.

The girl screamed and the bear split, running for the woods.

The girl had a mark on her leg but no puncture wounds.

Military wildlife agents searched for the animal but couldn't find it, Lee said.

Playing dead is normally considered a last resort and isn’t a good idea with all bears, said Valerie Connor, conservation director for the Alaska Center for the Environment.

The theory is if attacked by a black bear, fight back, but curl into a ball and protect your neck from brown bears.

via Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Alaska bears paying price for human encounters.

Link

Sounds just terrible. Surprising to see a black bear involved in such a ferocious attack.

Gerald Marois heard the bear before he saw it.

“I turned around and he was about 50 feet away — one of the biggest bears I had ever seen in my life.

“He looked at me and moved sideways a bit, I start backing up and he just charged me. He came full blast, man.”

Marois, 47, a retired steelworker and experienced hunter from Waubaushene, was mauled by a large black bear last Tuesday evening in a remote wooded area about 30 km northwest of Orillia.

He was airlifted to Sunnybrook hospital, where he gave the Star an exclusive and terrifying account of his near-death encounter.

Marois was planting a food plot in a small clearing about 150 feet inside the bush line, where he planned to hunt deer in the fall — “My Dad taught me that’s where you get the big buck” — when the bear came up from behind him.

“His head was huge, his eyes were really far apart from each other and he had tiny, tiny ears, which is the sign of a huge boar — probably 600 pounds.”

When the bear charged, Marois said he turned around and ran toward a nearby oak tree — “The one I wanted to put my tree-stand in” — and climbed three-quarters of the way up.

The bear followed him up.

Marois shakes as he tells the story from his hospital bed, his arms, legs and face covered in deep gashes.

Marois said he tried to fight the bear off from the trees upper branches, but it kept coming up after him.

“I was hitting him on the nose and on the head, trying to hurt him, and every time I hit him he was scraping me and just pulling on my boots.”

The bear pulled one of his boots off and started biting the bottom of his feet.

“Then he dragged me almost to the ground.”

Marois tried and tried to get away from the bear by climbing farther up the tree, but the bear repeatedly dragged him down.

“I was kicking him with the other boot and he grabbed that boot and he ripped it right off.”

The bear then tried to rip off Marois’s chest waders.

“That was messing him up, because they were coming back like an elastic, eh? And it was hard for him to rip them off.”

But the bear eventually got them.

“Then he started eating my flesh.”

Marois said he watched as the bear started eating into his right calf.

“He was eating my meat and he was licking the blood and licking himself and just enjoying every bite of it.

Marois suffered his worst injuries to his legs, which required a skin graft to repair. They look torn apart and scrawny when he lifts up his hospital gown.

“He ate my whole calf.”

Marois says he made at least 10 attempts to climb away from the bear and it kept coming after him.

“I was trying to get away from him in every direction that I could in that oak tree, but he kept on dragging me down; he wanted me down on the ground.”

Marois, who said he forgot his bear spray at home, then turned to the only weapon he had.

“I got my lighter out” — a regular cigarette lighter — “and I started burning his face.”

Marois said when he shoved the lighter in the bear’s face it clawed him in the head.

“And that was it with the lighter, eh? No more lighters.”

Proof of the bear’s swipe comes in the two long rows of stitches on the top and side of Marois’s head.

“I got really weak from that hit. I had barely nothing left, so I told God I was putting my life in his hands.”

He said he prayed to God to send his guardian angel to protect him, because he couldn’t fight the bear off any longer.

At that moment, the bear threw Marois from the tree — Marois figures about 20 feet — and he landed with a thud and a loud groan.

When he looked up he watched the bear dive out of the tree in the opposite direction.

“It seemed like God scare him, man. People don’t believe in God, but I’m telling you, man, something scare him. Because he got scared, he jumped in the rough and he took off.”

Marois said the attack definitely lasted more than 15 minutes, though he says it “felt like forever.”

But he knew he still wasn’t safe.

He heard the bear roaming around him, gnashing his teeth and making a guttural barking noise Marois called a “bawl” — the same noise it made before charging at him.

“I was sure I was dead. I told God, ‘Keep your hand over me, protect me.’”

Marois called his wife and then 911, but the rescue team and emergency crews couldn’t find him in the thick bush.

It took rescuers — with the help of Marois’ wife, Louise Beauchamp — more than an hour to find him. All the while Marois could hear the bear nearby.

Eventually the rescuers found him, and with Marois’s legs ripped to shreds, they moved him to a clearing where the air ambulance helicopter could land.

“That’s when I finally could breathe.”

The next thing Marois remembers is waking up in the hospital.

Marois’ health has been improving every day, but doctors tell him he may need plastic surgery to fix his legs. He says he has nightmares about the attack every time he sleeps.“It’s extremely hard for me to rest.”

Though he sometimes struggles to tell the story, Marois speaks angrily about the cancellation of the spring bear hunt in Ontario more than 10 years ago.

“I want (Premier Dalton McGuinty) to reconsider the spring bear hunt, so this doesn’t happen no more.”

Mike Harris’s provincial government ended the spring bear hunt in 1999 after it had been in place for 30 years. Critics called the spring hunt “barbaric” because it often left behind thousands of orphaned cubs. All other Canadian provinces with bears have spring hunts except Nova Scotia. Ontario still has a fall bear hunt, which starts in September.

A spokesman for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources said Friday that they thought the bear may have mistaken Marois — bent over and wearing chest waders — as a deer.

But Marois believes the bear was tracking him.

“He didn’t mistake me for nothing. That bear wanted to maul me; he was hungry and he came to get me.”

The ministry says bear encounters are not on the rise in the province, but Marois says he and his neighbours have seen different.

“We live up north, the bear are coming in our town, in our kids’ schoolyard. They walk the streets with their babies.

“I want the population of Toronto to be aware that they’re not scared of us. They roam the forest and if they’re hungry, they’ll get you, man. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Marois said his rescuers — a combination of OPP officers, paramedics and Port Severn firefighters — risked their lives entering the bush the way they did, not knowing if the bear was still in the area.

“I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.”

Marois, who has been living in the Waubaushene area for more than 20 years, comes from a hunting family in rural Quebec.

“I was born with a rabbit snare and a pellet gun in my hands.”

But now he says he may never hunt again.

“It will be really hard to go back in the bush after this.”

Link

A black bear attacked a man in the popular Muskoka region Tuesday night, leading to a massive hunt for the animal before cottagers head north for the long weekend. At approximately 6:30 p.m., a 47-year-old man was attacked near Severn Township, just northwest of Orillia, in a forest frequented by hikers and horseback riders. The victim sustained injuries to his right arm and deep lacerations on both legs. He was taken to Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A large bite on his calf indicates the bear is mature, according to police.

Link

SIERRA COUNTY, Calif. — An elderly hunter from Oroville was apparently attacked and seriously mauled by a black bear in Sierra County, the state Department of Fish and Game said.
Mark Lucero of Fish and Game said someone shot the animal near Camptonville, causing the bear to come down from a tree and charge Orval Sanders, 83, of Oroville.

Lucero said the bear grabbed the Sanders while the man tried to protect himself. He suffered lacerations and his left wrist was broken from a bite.

After the bear attacked Sanders, he went after another hunter. That hunter shot the bear in the head and killed it.

Sanders was taken to Sutter Roseville Medical Center, where Fish and Game officials were interviewing him.

The six-person hunting party was using dogs at the time of the attack.

Fish and Game officials plan to retrieve the head the bear to test it for rabies. Officials said when there’s an interaction between a human and a wild animal, wardens investigate the case.

Bear hunting season begins in early October and lasts until the allotted number of bears is killed, Lucero said.

The hunting was legal, officials said.

Fish and Game said bear-hunting season is Sept. 26 through Nov. 1, or until the bear tags are used up. Officials said there are 1,700 issued for California, and 303 bears have been killed so far.

Link

A 78-year-old man was hospitalized Friday with injuries he received when he was attacked by a black bear in a remote area of eastern Utah.

The bear was shot and killed by another camper.

About 12:30 a.m., a river-rafting party of 13 people, including nine family members and four guides, were sleeping after finding a spot off the Green River near Rock Creek Ranch in Carbon County’s Desolation Canyon to stop for the night, said Brad Crompton, Division of Wildlife Resources’ southeastern region wildlife biologist. The family was awakened upon hearing the sound of a bear attacking a family member who had been sleeping on a cot, he said.

One of the victim’s daughters jumped on the bear and hit it with her fists, according to a statement from the DWR. After another family member joined in the struggle the bear let go of the man at which point the bear was shot in the back by one of the victim’s grandsons. The animal ran off and was found dead after sunrise.

The man’s torso was punctured and his arms scratched, the DWR said. A medical helicopter flew the man to a hospital about 4 a.m., and an airplane returned later in the morning to fly out the rest of the family.

“He seemed to be doing very well,” DWR spokesman Mark Hadley said of the latest update on the man’s condition, which was last reported to be stable.

Several hours before the attack, between 6 and 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the bear first appeared in the camp area but was scared off after a shot was fired into the air, the DWR said.

The victim, along with the other campers, had stored all of their food well away from the sleeping area.

“He was doing everything correctly,” Crompton said.

The man’s name and hometown were not released.

Most of the time, a bear can simply be scared away, Crompton said. If campers encounter an aggressive bear, they should report it as soon as they can to the DWR. Other safety tips can be found atwww.wildlife.utah.gov/bearsafety.

The bear encounter was the latest in a string of incidents this year.

In August, roads leading to campgrounds in the area of the Ute Fire Lookout in the Ashley National Forest’s Flaming Gorge Ranger District were closed due to black-bear activity.

In July, a young black bear was killed after wandering into Balsam campground in Hobble Creek Canyon.

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BLACK MOUNTAIN — A Black Mountain woman suffered minor injuries trying to get her dog away from a bear and two cubs that wandered into her yard Sunday, wildlife officials said.

Gaynell Lumsden was in her garage at Great Aspen Lane when the bears came into her yard about 8:30 p.m. Her small dog went after the bears, and when Lumsden tried to get her dog away, she was swatted by the mother bear.

Lumsden was treated at Mission Hospital and released late Sunday. Her dog, which was also slapped by the bear, did not suffer major injuries, officials said.

“I would not call it a bear attack, but a bear incident,” said Mike Carraway, a wildlife biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

“It was just a mother bear defending her cubs. If it had been the bear taking aggressive action, the injuries would have been much more serious. The bear was defending its space is my take,” Carraway said.

Mother bears are not necessarily more dangerous than others, but they can be more aggressively defensive when their cubs are small at this time of year. “Later in the summer, when the cubs can run faster and climb, the mothers won’t be so protective,” Carraway said.

Bears also react instinctively to dogs, even small ones barking at them. “Dogs and bears don’t mix well,” he said.

Bears are commonly seen around the neighborhood outside Black Mountain, which was developed next to the pristine Asheville Watershed, according to neighbor Lyon Williams. “We’ve had bears break into houses. You can’t have a low-hanging bird feeder or a trash can out on the street. We have trash containers that we have to chain up.”

Bear incidents or sightings have exploded from 1993 when only 13 complaints were received around Asheville and the counties west of Buncombe, Haywood and Madison. In 2008, the commission received 302 bear reports from that district.

“This has been a fairly normal year” so far in 2009, Carraway said.

More sightings occur as more developments are built around the mountains. Humans moving into the mountains don’t necessarily chase animals away, but have actually led to an increase in the bear population since hunting is prohibited near the new homes, Carraway said. “You have all this little bear sanctuaries popping up,” he said.

In 2005, there were 4,000 bears estimated to live in Western North Carolina, according to the N.C. Wildlife Commission.

State wildlife officials can’t trap nuisance bears and relocate them, Carraway said. “We have nowhere to put them. We have Asheville city officials ask if we can’t take the bears and dump them up in the Asheville Watershed, but the watershed is saturated with bears. They would just come back down on Montreat and neighborhoods like this one.”

Warren Wilson College public safety officers issued an email alert last week, warning of an increase of bear sightings around campus and for students and staff to take precautions, said Ben Anderson, a college spokesman. “We always have some sightings during the summer, but we’re definitely seeing an increase.”

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Great site with very useful information about wild animals in California. Here’s an excerpt about Mountain Lions.

You may be attracting mountain lions to your property without knowing it!

More than half of California is mountain lion habitat. Mountain lions generally exist wherever deer are found. They are solitary and elusive, and their nature is to avoid humans.

Mountain lions prefer deer but, if allowed, they also eat pets and livestock. In extremely rare cases, even people have fallen prey to mountain lions.

Mountain lions that threaten people are immediately killed. Those that prey on pets or livestock can be killed by a property owner after the required depredation permit is secured. Moving problem mountain lions is not an option. It causes deadly conflicts with other mountain lions already there. Or the relocated mountain lion returns.

Help prevent deadly conflicts with these beautiful wild animals.

Living in Mountain Lion Country

• Don’t feed deer; it is illegal in California and it will attract mountain lions.
• Deer-proof your landscaping by avoiding plants that deer like to eat. For tips, request A Gardener’s Guide to Preventing Deer Damage from DFG offices.
• Trim brush to reduce hiding places for mountain lions.
• Don’t leave small children or pets outside unattended.
• Install motion-sensitive lighting around the house.
• Provide sturdy, covered shelters for sheep, goats, and other vulnerable animals.
• Don’t allow pets outside when mountain lions are most active—dawn, dusk, and at night.
• Bring pet food inside to avoid attracting raccoons, opossums and other potential mountain lion prey.

Identifying Mountain Lion Tracks The mountain lion track on the left can be distinguished from the dog track on the right by the absence of toenail prints and by the “M” shaped pad

Staying Safe in Mountain Lion Country

Mountain lions are quiet, solitary and elusive, and typically avoid people.

Mountain lion attacks on humans are extremely rare. However, conflicts are increasing as California’s human population expands into mountain lion habitat.

• Do not hike, bike, or jog alone.
• Avoid hiking or jogging when mountain lions are most active—dawn, dusk, and at night.
• Keep a close watch on small children.
• Do not approach a mountain lion.
• If you encounter a mountain lion, do not run; instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms; throw rocks or other objects. Pick up small children.
• If attacked, fight back.
• If a mountain lion attacks a person, 
  immediately call 911.

click to enlarge 
 Mountain lions can be found wherever deer, their primary prey, are found. They are a Specially Protected Mammal in California and cannot be hunted.

Link

Black bears 
…are on the loose in Southwest Florida 
BY BILL CORNWELL bcornwell@floridaweekly.com 
THE TENUOUS TRUCE BETWEEN wildlife and urban life in Fort Myers, Lee County and all of Southwest Florida, for that matter, is fraying at the edges. And the source of this unease is one of the area’s longstanding residents: the black bear.

 

The state considers black bears a protected species. An unprovoked killing is a third-degree felony.

 

In recent weeks, there have been reports of a bear foraging in a Dumpster near Metro Parkway. On May 7, a San Carlos Park man was arrested and charged with using a .44 Magnum handgun to kill an 80-pound bear that had ventured near the man’s home. And last week, two more bears were killed — presumably by gunshot — and dumped by the side of State Road 29 in Collier County. Authorities believe the bears had been killed elsewhere and transported to the roadside site.

The sightings and the killings have prompted considerable discussion about the possible dangers bears pose in densely populated areas and how residents should react when they encounter the creatures.

“We have never had a bear attack in Florida,” says Gary Morse, a Lakelandbased spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Regarding the recent case in San Carlos Park, Mr. Morse says authorities determined the bear was not threatening.

 

PHOTOS COURTESY LORI YOUNG Above, one of the black bears in The Naples Zoo’s new habitat that opens Saturday, May 23. It will be the largest such exhibit at any zoo east of the Mississippi River. Left, David Tetzlaff, director of The Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens.

Because the state considers black bears a protected species, an unprovoked killing is a third-degree felony, which carries the possibility of a $5,000 fine and five years in prison. 

Although the number of encounters involving bears and humans is increasing, Mr. Morse says there is no cause for alarm. “Bears generally are very shy, and seek to avoid people,” he says. “It doesn’t take much to scare one off.” His advice should a bear wind up in your backyard? “Don’t be frightened. It’s probably just wandering through. Leave it alone. Don’t approach the bear or run toward it.”

 

And never, under any circumstance, he stresses, should anyone feed a bear. 

Mr. Morse estimates that Florida’s bear population is about 3,500. It takes about 30 square miles to support a bear, so it’s not unusual that one will occasionally stray into spaces normally occupied by humans. Those bears that do stray are invariably attracted by something associated with food, so keeping garbage and pet food secure will diminish the chances of an encounter.

If a bear does attack or exhibit hostile behavior, Mr. Morse advises contacting local authorities and the FWC hotline at (888) 404-3922.

“In most of these incidents, the bear is probably more frightened than the human,” he says.

Bullish on bears

Down in Naples, David Tetzlaff has bears on his mind, too, but for an altogether different reason. In fact, Mr. Tetzlaff is positively bullish on bears. As the director of The Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens, he has ample reason for his enthusiasm.

Mr. Tetzlaff and his staff are putting the final touches on a new black bear habitat that upon opening May 23 will be the largest such exhibit at any zoo east of the Mississippi River.

Mr. Tetzlaff says the new exhibit will help visitors understand black bears. And he believes that is the first step in allaying fears that may have arisen as a result of recent bear sightings.

“I want people to respect animals, not be afraid of them,” he says. “You can’t appreciate animals if you’re afraid of them. As much trouble as we’re having these days with habitat laws and endangered and threatened species, if people are afraid of these animals, they are not going to care about their survival.”

The zoo’s new bear habitat cost $750,000 to construct and encompasses 15,000 square feet. Two young black bears, a male and female, will occupy the space. The bears were not living in the wild before taking up residence at the zoo.

“These bears were in dire circumstances before they came here,” Mr. Tetzlaff explains. “They were in a private facility, in a backyard, and it was a substandard facility. Their owner died, and they could have been euthanized.”

Both animals are about 4 years old; the female weighs about 165 pounds, and the male tips the scales at close to 300 pounds, he says. (Life expectancy for black bears is somewhere between 15 and 30 years; and a full-grown bear can reach 500 pounds.)

“These bears are lucky; they got a new lease on life, and they will live in the best bear exhibit in North America,” Mr. Tetzlaff says.

The zoo habitat features a natural setting, complete with a railroad trestle that spans a creek, as well as a layout that approximates an urban backyard.

“We set it up to look like a backyard for a reason,” Mr. Tetzlaff says. “We want people to see this and realize that, yes, a bear could come into their backyard. That’s very important. The purpose of this habitat — other than entertainment — is to teach people how to live with bears.”

Many Floridians erroneously believe that bears are only to be found in the northern United States and Canada. It shocks some to discover that Florida boasts a substantial bear population. Mr. Tetzlaff says it is a constant misconception, even among people who have lived here all their lives, that there are no bears in Southwest Florida. “We have bears in Collier County and Lee County and all over Southwest Florida.”

Although no one knows for certain, Mr. Tetzlaff estimates there could be 500 to 1,000 black bears here. “They can adapt to live anywhere,” he says. “They can live in British Columbia, and they can live in Big Cypress. And this isn’t something new. The bears have been here forever.”

While Florida has yet to record a bear attack, Mr. Tetzlaff says that fact does not negate the need for caution when an encounter with a black bear occurs.

“Many people look at the black bear as cute, like a teddy bear,” he says. “They see grizzlies as ferocious and black bears as cuddly. But statistically, black bears injure or kill more people than grizzlies.” He’s quick to add that most local encounters are a result of a bear looking for food “or just exploring. They are not looking to harm.”

Face-to-face encounters

Naples Zoo visitors will also learn safety tips regarding black bears at the new exhibit. “We will talk bout faceto face encounters, and how to protect yourself,” Mr. Tetzlaff says. “We’ll also discuss what you can do on your property to discourage bears.” For example:

• If you feed your pets outside, bring the food in when they are finished.

• Don’t leave your barbecue grill outside. “Whether the grill has food on it or not, the bear can smell it a mile away,” Mr. Tetzlaff says.

• Keep bird feeders out of reach of bears.

• Don’t put your garbage out at night; put it out in the morning.

Mr. Tetzlaff, an avid bow hunter, says he has had six encounters with bears while in the woods and none turned ugly. But that is not to say there is no danger in an encounter.

“Most of the time nothing occurs, but if an encounter gets bad, it gets bad fast,” he says. “Don’t engage the bear. Just leave it alone. Do nothing to provoke it or attract it. If a bear comes for you, you are in trouble. They can run at 30 miles an hour, and they can climb a 100-foot tree in 30 seconds. With that in mind, you should never run from a bear if it comes at you. You can’t outrun the bear, and by turning and attempting to flee you are acting like prey.”

If a bear does attack, Mr. Tetzlaff advises that you “act big, act tough and yell at it.” If that doesn’t discourage the bear, then he says “fighting back” is advisable.”

The opening of the bear habitat coincides with the zoo’s 40th anniversary. The zoo was the brainchild of Mr. Tetzlaff’s father, a 6-foot-6-inch-tall swashbuckler known as “Jungle Larry.” The Plain Dealer, a Cleveland newspaper, said that Jungle Larry “lived a life as big as legend as an animal trainer, expedition leader and conservationist.” Jungle Larry appeared in three “Tarzan” movies in which he wrestled alligators as a stand-in for Johnny Weismuller.

In 1967, Jungle Larry and his wife, Nancy, who was nicknamed “Safari Jane,” happened across what was then the Caribbean Gardens in Naples and saw the potential for bigger things.

“They saw this little attraction, which didn’t have any animals — it was just trees and some birds at that time — and they thought it would a really neat place to put wild animals,” Mr. Tetzlaff recalls.

Two years later, the Tetzlaffs bought the small attraction, introduced animals and named it Jungle Larry’s Zoological Park.

From those humble beginnings, the Naples Zoo at Caribbean Gardens has emerged. Since 2005, the zoo has operated as a nonprofit that is governed by a board of directors. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, something that only 10 percent of the zoos in the United States can boast. The zoo encompasses 43 acres, with about 30 of those acres in active use. Its annual operating budget is about $4 million and it employs some 50 people. New attractions, such as the bear habitat, are financed through donations and grants.

More than 260,000 people visited the zoo last year, and Mr. Tetzlaff expects attendance to spike this year because of the bear habitat and, oddly enough, the struggling economy.

“I think we are getting more people because with the economic conditions people are looking for things to do close to home that don’t involve as much travel and expense,” he says.

The zoo is still a Tetzlaff family affair. Mr. Tetzlaff’s brother, Tim, wife, Kelly, and son, Sasha, all hold positions at the zoo.

Before becoming zoo director, Mr. Tetzlaff, who is 46 years old, followed his father’s footsteps and was an animal trainer — yeah, one of those guys with a whip and a chair — who specialized in big cats. He gave up the excitement of animal training for the administrative work of running the zoo, and – despite his love of animal training — hasn’t looked back.

“I hope to do this the rest of my life,” he says. “And I hope we can keep getting better. For me to walk away from this or not do the very best I can, would be disrespecting everything my parents worked for and built.”

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Predatory bear saw northern Albertan teenager as food, expert says

 

Large group of campers didn’t provide usual safety from attack

BY LAURA DRAKE, THE EDMONTON JOURNAL

Experts say a 15-year-old boy mauled on Sunday was the victim of a predatory bear attack.

“In this instance, we’re presuming the bear saw the boy as food,” said Russell Stashko, co-chair of Alberta’s Bear Smart program.

The boy was camping with a large group of people at Roche Lake, a remote site accessible only by a three- to four-hour all-terrain vehicle ride east of Swan Hills.

Stashko said the bear showed up at their campsite Saturday night, but was scared off by a shotgun blast. It returned early the next morning and attacked the boy before being scared off again by the same gun.

Stashko said there is “no rhyme or reason” as to why the bear attacked the 15-year-old out of the group of 25 to 30 people he was with. It is unusual for a bear to even approach such a large group, he added.

“It is uncommon. Usually, there is safety in numbers,” Stashko said.

“Most bears, 99 per cent of the time, would prefer not to be around humans. It is an anomaly.”

However, Stashko said, this is the time of year when bear attacks are the most common, since they are just waking up from their winter sleep.

“The first thing they do when they come out of hibernation is look for food,” he said.

The boy was transported Sunday morning by air ambulance to the University of Alberta Hospital. STARS spokesman Cameron Heke said the air ambulance pilots were easily able to find the victim in a remote wooded area because of a mix of technology and good-old-fashioned smoke signals.

“They had a Global Positioning System … which was very helpful in us being able to find them because they were in a heavily wooded area. They also had a big fire going, so they used smoke as a signal, as well,” Heke said.

The boy was in stable condition when STARS transported him. Heke said one of the crew on the air ambulance told him the 15-year-old victim was very brave.

“He said ‘He was a very brave young lad.’ Those were his exact words.”

Alberta Health Services spokeswoman Holly Budd said the boy was doing well in hospital. His family did not wish to speak to the media.

Stashko said investigators are almost positive that the bear which attacked the boy was killed several hours later.

“We’re certain that the bear involved was shot by some bear hunters,” Stashko said.

To be certain, the investigators have taken bear DNA from the boy’s wounds and will compare it with DNA from the bear carcass.

Stashko said there are two kinds of bear attacks: defensive and predatory. In the case where a bear looks like it may attack a human in defence of itself or its young, the best thing a person can do is to back away and give the animal lots of room.

If a bear seems like it’s attacking for predatory reasons, a person should fight back and make as much noise as possible.

Stashko also recommended using devices such as a portable electric bear fence, which this group did not have.

Link

Black bear mauls teenager

BY KAREN KLEISS, THE EDMONTON JOURNALMAY 18, 2009

 

 

Black bear

Photograph by: Debra Brash, Times Colonist

A 15-year-old boy was mauled by a black bear Sunday morning while camping with a large group of people in a remote area near Swan Hills.

The boy was airlifted to an Edmonton hospital, said Joan McCracken, a spokeswoman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. She would not say what his condition was. McCracken said the boy was camping with two dozen people near Roche Lake, a remote spot 30 kilometres east of Swan Hills that is only accessible by all-terrain vehicle.

The bear first visited the campsite on Saturday night, but another camper fired a shot into the air to scare it away. But the bear returned around 5:30 a.m. Sunday and mauled the teenager. The same camper fired the gun again and the bear fled. The teen was taken to hospital by air ambulance and a response team evacuated the remaining campers and launched an investigation.

At 8:30 a.m., hunters told wildlife officials they shot a bear leaving the creek area where the mauled teen was camping.

Officials are testing that bear’s DNA to determine whether it is the same animal that attacked the boy.

Citing department policy, both McCracken and a spokeswoman for Capital Health refused to release any information about the boy’s injuries.

McCracken also refused to say if the boy was inside his tent at the time of the attack and whether he was following standard backcountry bear safety protocols.

Link

Bear Attacks And How To Avoid Them

Link

Bear sighting no surprise to wildlife biologist

By Lisa Rogers
Times Staff Writer

Published: Friday, May 15, 2009 at 8:44 p.m. 
Last Modified: Friday, May 15, 2009 at 9:03 p.m.

A wildlife expert said he believes black bears are in Northeast Alabama to stay.
There were about 50 calls of sightings of black bears in Northeast Alabama last year, said Tracy Nelson, wildlife biologist with the Alabama Department of Conversation and Natural Resources.
That is up significantly from about four years ago when Nelson first started keeping track of bear activity.
An Attalla street department employee saw a black bear early Thursday in a neighborhood near First Street and watched the bear come from between two houses and cross Preston Avenue, go through a couple of grassy alleys and run into some nearby woods.
A Gadsden family spotted bear tracks behind their home Friday evening.
Rhonda Simmons said there were three pairs of tracks on her property between Charles Street and Perry Street.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “It just blows my mind. I don’t think it’s the same one they spotted in Attalla. I don’t see it traveling that far. It makes me wonder if (there are) more in this area.”
Nelson, a conservation enforcement officer and wildlife biologist, said he first started to keep track of reports after a female bear den was discovered in Cherokee County.
The bear had three cubs, he said.
He said those cubs, now adult bears, have probably populated.
“They have a really big home range,” he said. “They can travel several square miles in a given time. Those cubs have dispersed and established their own ranges.”
He said the bear seen in Attalla could be one of those.
There was a report from the Gadsden area last year and there have been several reports from the Tabor Road area, Nelson said.
When Nelson first started tracking the bear sightings, he believes most of the bears were transient – moving through the area from Georgia and Tennessee.
Most of those sightings were in spring.
“But the nature of the calls have changed,” he said.
“People are encountering them in spring and summer and that would lead me to believe they’re here to stay,” he said. “A few are finding new territories to make a new home.”
Nelson said it is important for people to understand that bears rarely come in contact with people and rarely are seen in populated areas.
The black bears of this area are mainly vegetarians and do not exceed 200 pounds, he said.
“They eat nuts, leaves and scratch around for grubs,” he said. “It’s not like an aggressive predator that is going to eat flesh.”
Bears don’t generally go to populated areas, but when they do, it is usually after food, Nelson said.
“They’re going to get away from people as a general rule,” he said. “If you leave dog food or scraps, that might be why a bear is hanging around.”
Nelson said increased bear sightings in Georgia and other nearby states indicate that more bears could be making their way into Alabama.
Development most likely has driven the bears from their habitats.
They tend to follow river systems and streams, Nelson said.
Georgia has established a legal bear season in Floyd and Chattooga counties to keep the bear populations in check.
Last year more than 300 were legally harvested, Nelson said.
He said the number grew in North Carolina to more than 1,800 legally-harvested bear last year.
Bears still are protected in Alabama and not considered a game animal, Nelson said.
“We’re not anywhere close to where we’re going to have a nuisance,” he said. “A few are finding new territories to make a new home. Some people get a little nervous, but they’re no more of a threat than having a deer in the area.”
People should use common sense by keeping garbage in an enclosed can.
“Just be aware of what attracts bears,” Nelson said. “If you see one, give it plenty of space. You don’t have to grab a gun to defend your life.”
The black bears in this region are not the brown bears of the west and are not likely to attack, Nelson said.
“It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely that they’re going to attack someone,” he said.

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Looks like someone got a little over-aggressive.

Editorial: Local bear killing needless slaughter

EDITORIAL • MAY 12, 2009

The needless execution of a juvenile black bear by a San Carlos Park man last week was at best an act of ignorance.

Kevin Doerr, 40, was arrested after dispatching the 80-pound animal with a .44 Magnum handgun. The Florida black bear is a threatened species; killing one is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in jail and $5,000 in fines.

If Doerr is found guilty, he should pay a significant price. Such is too rarely the case with wildlife violations.

That’s a shame because as we better protect wildlife and its habitat, and as the human population grows and spreads, such encounters will increase. There have been several recent sightings of black bears in Lee County.

State wildlife officers found that the shooting last week was not self-defense. “The bear was not disturbing the property or acting aggressively in any manner,” said Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “He wasn’t a threat.”

We could understand such an act in the case of an attack on humans. But absent that, the best course in a bear encounter in a settled area is to call wildlife officers or law enforcement if a threat seems imminent. There has never been a documented case of a black bear attacking a human in Florida.

People need to respect potentially dangerous wildlife, but not to regard them with fear and loathing, and certainly not as opportunities to finally blow something away with that big hand cannon.

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Bear goes to lunch on Metro Parkway

FWC to trap and relocate wild animal

By Rachel Myers
rmyers@news-press.com

• Photos: Black bear spotted in south Fort Myers

Home-hunting had caused him to work up quite an appetite. 

After meandering the streets a while, he found a cozy haunt in the shade, where a bag of salty Lays potato chips hit the spot.

But anyone would get self-conscious with a crowd gathering to watch you dine. 

Too bad the spot was inside a Dumpster, the streets were busy and he was a 6-foot, 150-pound black bear wandering just off Metro Parkway. 

“He jumped in the Dumpster, grabbed a bag and jumped out,” said Dan Peterson, manager of Caloosa Tent & Rental Dumpster. “He brought it to the woods and then jumped back in. Once the police showed up, he took off. It was as if he recognized the uniforms.”

Experts with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission say their approach is typically hands-off. But after seeing the bear’s boldness and lack of fear toward people, the decision was made to trap and relocate him.

“This bear has obviously been fed,” said Gary Morse, FWC spokesman. “It’s a shame, because it often leads to nuisance behaviors, and I hate to say it but people need to know: A fed bear is a dead bear. Once they learn these behaviors, it’s very difficult to get them to behave normally.”

The bears are rarely aggressive, Morse said. But if a bear has been fed by humans, it loses its fear and will come dangerously close. 

The Metro Parkway sighting and another reported later Monday on Franklin Street in Fort Myers make four in three days in Lee County, with another also in Fort Myers off Daniels Parkway on Saturday and the fourth at Jenna Avenue and Seventh Street Southwest in Lehigh Acres.

At the latter location, parents were concerned because the bear was wandering close to a school bus stop. But the wildlife commission declined to respond, saying the best approach is to leave bears alone as they rarely are aggressive unless they’ve been fed. 

Media images Monday show a man taking a picture of the bear on Franklin Street less than 10 feet away as the bear relaxes on the edge of the trash bin before diving in, paying no mind to the half-dozen humans gathered around him.

“That’s not normal,” Morse said.

While the hope is relocation, Morse said, unfortunately habits die hard; if the bear continues to find its way to people, it may need to be killed. 

“The prognosis in these cases is usually bad,” Morse said. 

It’s unknown if the bear seen Monday on Franklin Street is the same one seen earlier on Metro Parkway. 

“It could be one adventurous bear, or it could be a couple,” Morse said. 

There are five main black bear territories in Florida, and one of the larger sites is south of Lee County.

Sightings are more common this time of year, Morse said, because mother bears prepare to bear new offspring, and force the young adolescent males away from their home territory so they aren’t a danger to cubs. The young males search for new space, and sometimes end up in urban environments. 

They are attracted to food — any food — including bird feeders, trash and pet food. 

“Bears will do incredible things to get food,” Morse said. “You’ve got to make it as hard for them as possible so they won’t be tempted to get close.”

Peterson, who spotted the Metro Parkway bear after the furry visitor scaled the fence and dove into the Dumpster, said it’s not uncommon for smaller scavengers to frequent the grounds. But seeing a bear was unnerving — and he almost didn’t believe it.

After running away, Peterson returned, just to make sure he had seen what he thought he saw.

“It looked like it was going to knock the tree down,” Peterson said. “He looked healthy. Usually you think of a bear living in the woods as scrawny. But he looked like a healthy animal.”

— Staff Writer Terry Brady contributed to this report.

Additional Facts

Bear sightings in Lee County
View Bear sightings in a larger map

Link

BC hero dog inducted to animal hall of fame

Jarod saved woman from bear attack

Sonia Aslam | Monday, May 4th, 2009 11:02 am

 

Jarod and Donna (Courtesy Purina Animal Hall of Fame)

GENELLE (NEWS1130) - One of British Columbia’s most unique heroes is being honoured in Toronto today.  This hero saved a woman’s life during a bear attack last fall.  The hero: a family dog!  And ‘Jarod’, an 8-year-old Chow from Genelle, is being inducted into the Purina Animal Hall of Fame.

Jarod’s owner Donna Perreault says the dog saved her life–and the life of her other Chow ‘Meesha’ from a bear attack.  “Jarod came bolting out the door and started attacking the bear from the back.  The bear had me backed up against the garage door.  Jarod was still attacking him, but then he really bit into him, and the bear turned.”

Jarod then acted as a decoy by running behind the garage. The bear took the bait and followed Jarod, giving Donna and Meesha time to safely return inside the house. Finally Jarod managed to safely get away from the bear.

Perreault says Jarod is her little blessing.  She rescued him from a shelter when he was 6-years-old.

Jarod is one of three dogs, and one cat being inducted today.

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Bear Killed After Attack On Camper

Campground Closed Following Attack

 

POSTED: 6:21 p.m. MDT August 21, 2001

UPDATED: 11:20 a.m. MDT August 22, 2001

 

WESTCLIFFE, Colo. – State wildlife officials killed a bear after it attacked a camper who was sleeping in a tent in south-central Colorado.

BEAR ENCOUNTERS Should tagged bears be destroyed? Are you concerned about bear attacks when camping? Bears And Campers Tips For Surviving In Bear Country Slideshow: Clever Bear Eludes Officials

 

The attack happened around midnight Tuesday at the Lake Creek Campground, about 10 miles northwest of Westcliffe in Custer County. 

Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury said a 21-year-old camper from Sawyer, Kan., whose name wasn’t released, was attacked. 

The victim told wildlife officials that he was sleeping in a tent with two other people when the bear broke through the side. The man woke up to find the bear standing on top of him and kicked to get the animal to leave. 

The bear bit his hand and the man grabbed a hatchet and began swinging at the animal. The bear then left the tent after a scuffle that lasted 20-30 seconds. In addition to the bite to his right hand, the man also received injuries to his head, back and upper-right arm. 

He was treated at a clinic in Westcliffe before being taken to a hospital in Pueblo, where he was treated and released. 

 

Wildlife manager Al Trujillo said Colorado Division of Wildlife officers, using dogs provided by a local hunting outfitter, tracked and destroyed the bear about 7 a.m. 

 

As a precautionary measure, wildlife officers asked the U.S. Forest Service to close the campground while they monitor other bears in the area. 

Trujillo said that the Forest Service had placed bear-proof trash containers at the Lake Creek Campground and that there was no trash lying around to attract bears. But bears had been reported in the area feeding on trash. 

Also on Tuesday, authorities tranquilized a bear after it wandered into a neighborhood near an elementary school in Jefferson County. Authorities said the bear would be tagged and moved to another area. 

Four campers have been injured by bears in southern Colorado this year. 

Wildlife officials killed two other bears after attacks at a Boy Scout camp near Salida earlier this month. The camp has been closed until next season to allow for the installation of bear-proof garbage cans. 

In each case, food and trash left in or around campsites attracted bears to the area, wildlife officials say. The three previous attacks — two near Poncha Springs in Chaffee County and one west of Gardner in Huerfano County — required campers to be treated and released at nearby hospitals for bite and scratch wounds and bruises. 

Drought and a late-spring freeze have combined to leave black bears with little food in areas of south-central Colorado, officials said. 

Campers, home and cabin owners and visitors to the state are urged to avoid leaving food, trash, bird feeders, livestock feed, pet food or other attractants outside and accessible to bears. Homeowners should also close and lock lower-story windows and doors in areas where bears are active. 

Black bears will be actively feeding from now through early October as they attempt to put on enough fat to get them through hibernation. Bears eat for up to 20 hours a day during this period and can consume up to 20,000 calories in a single day. 

State wildlife policy calls for bears that are caught causing twice causing problems in areas populated by humans to be killed.

Link

Great resource from Colorado.

Living with Bears in Colorado 

Be Bear Aware Do Your Part to Keep Bears Wild

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Welcome to the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Living with Bears online resource center. You’ll find lots of information on living, vacationing, and spending time outdoors in bear country. Plus, practical guidelines that will help you do your part to prevent human-bear conflicts, and keep bears wild.Today, bears are sharing space with a growing human population. Curious, intelligent, and very resourceful, black bears will explore all possible food sources. If they find food near homes, campgrounds, vehicles, or communities, they’ll come back for more. Bears will work hard to get the calories they need, and can easily damage property, vehicles, and homes. Bears that become aggressive in their pursuit of an easy meal must often be destroyed.

Every time we’re forced to destroy a bear, it’s not just the bear that loses. We all lose a little piece of the wildness that makes Colorado so special. So please, get the information you need, and share it with your friends, neighbors, and community. If you need more, we’re here to help!

Please do your part to keep bears wild.

Living with Bears

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• Living with Bears
• Bear-proofing Your Home  
• Keep Bears Wild Pledge and Home Checklist (You will need to copy—or print two copies—so you will have one to mail in after you have reviewed and completed the form. The directions on the form refer to a carbonless version used in the field.)
• Attracting Birds, Not Bears
• Bear-resisitant Trash Containers (Commercially available trash containers.)

 

Outdoors in Bear Country

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• Camping & Hiking in Bear Country
• Bear Encounters

For Kids

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• Black Bear Profile
• Black Bear Challenge (An interactive game.)
• Bears (The “Bears” issue of Colorado’s Wildlife Company.)
• Be Bear Aware in Colorado Bear Country—an activity booklet 
• Images of Bears (To search the database, type “bear” in the ‘description’ field.) 
• Black bear activities for kid’s in the primary through middle school grades.

Link

DEP: It’s Time to Prepare for Bears

With the arrival of spring, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is reminding residents to be aware of and prepare for bears that become more active this time of year looking for food, territory, and mates. The state’s bear population, which is estimated at over 300, continues to grow and expand, increasing the need for people to know how to prevent problems. In 2008, over 2,700 sightings of bears were reported from 133 of Connecticut’s 169 towns.

“As the bear population increases, conflicts with humans will be inevitable. However, many of these conflicts are preventable, said Ed Parker, Chief, Bureau of Natural Resources in a DEP press release. “Most problems occur when bears are attracted close to homes by human-provided food sources. If bears find food rewards near homes, they can become habituated and lose their fear of humans. The best step in preventing problems with bears is to avoid intentionally or unintentionally feeding bears.”
Homeowners can often prevent bear problems by making unavailable or simply removing food attractants that draw bears into populated areas. The two most common attractants are bird seed at feeders and household garbage. Residents who maintain backyard birdfeeders should take down their feeders in spring and store them until late fall. Wild birds do not require this supplemental food during spring, summer, and fall. Garbage should be stored in a garage or secure shed. Unwanted visits by bears and other wildlife can be reduced by adding ammonia to garbage and placing it in airtight containers. Other potential attractants include pet or livestock food stored outdoors, grease and drippings on barbecue grills, sweet or fatty food scraps placed on compost piles, and fruit on or fallen from trees.
Bears will attack and kill livestock, such as sheep, goats, pigs, and fowl. They also can destroy unprotected beehives. One of the best precautions for these problems is well-maintained electric fencing. Other recommendations for livestock growers include moving animals into sheds at night, keeping feed contained, keeping animals as distant from forested areas as possible, and using guard dogs.
“To assure the welfare of bears and the people who live near them, public understanding and tolerance of bears is critical,” said Mr. Parker. “Learning to live with bears requires all of us to take the proper precautions for preventing problems.”
The DEP encourages residents to take the following simple steps to avoid problems with black bears:
1. Never intentionally feed bears to attract them to your yard for viewing.
2. Take down, clean, and put away birdfeeders by late March. Store the feeders until late fall. Clean up spilled seed below feeder stations.
3. Store garbage in secure, airtight containers inside a garage or shed. Double bagging and the use of ammonia will reduce odors that attract bears. Periodically clean garbage cans with ammonia to reduce residual odor. Garbage for pickup should be put outside the morning of collection and not the night before.
4. Avoid leaving pet food or dishes outdoors at night.
5. Keep barbecue grills clean. Store grills inside a garage or shed.
6. Avoid placing meat scraps or sweet foods in compost piles.
7. Protect beehives, livestock, and berry bushes with electric fencing.
8. Keep dogs on a leash outdoors. A roaming dog might be perceived as a threat to a bear or its cubs.
If you encounter a bear while hiking, make your presence known by yelling or making other loud noises. Usually, a bear will move from an area once it detects humans. If a bear does not retreat, slowly leave the area and find an alternate hiking route. While camping, be aware that most human foods are also attractive to bears. Keep a clean campsite, and store food and garbage away from your campsite and in secure containers (for example, in a cooler stored in the trunk of a car).
Prevention of problems and tolerance are the basis for learning to live with bears in Connecticut. It is important to remember that although black bears regularly travel near houses, they are rarely aggressive toward humans and can usually be frightened away by making loud noises, throwing sticks or spraying with a hose. However, it is not uncommon for bears that have found food, such as birdseed from feeders, to ignore such disturbances. In the rare instance when a bear appears to be overly bold or aggressive toward people, residents should contact the DEP Wildlife Division’s Sessions Woods office at 860-675-8130 (Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or the DEP’s 24-hour dispatch line (860-424-3333) during weekends and non-business hours.
The DEP Wildlife Division monitors the black bear population through sighting reports received from the public. Anyone who observes a black bear in Connecticut is encouraged to report the sighting on the DEP’s Web site (www.ct.gov/dep) or call the Wildlife Division’s Sessions Woods office. Some bears have been ear-tagged for research. Information on the presence or absence of tags is valuable. To obtain informational fact sheets about bears, visit the DEP’s Web site or call the Sessions Woods office.

Link

It’s amazing how often wild animals show up in non-wild areas.

Black bear living on I-5 median

10:29 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 22, 2009

By ROB PIERCY and JIM FORMAN / KING 5 News 

Video: Bear makes itself at home in freeway median

STANWOOD, Wash. – Of all the places to call home, a black bear near Stanwood has chosen, perhaps, the noisiest.

Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Randy Lambert says an adult black bear appears to be living in the median of Interstate 5, near Exit 215 in the Stanwood area, a few miles north of Smokey Point.

“He’s foraging on the fresh spring grass and plants growing in the median,” Lambert said.

Video

SkyKING video of bear on median

Bears showing up in unusual places

Since the weekend, hundreds of drivers have called the State Patrol, reporting sightings of the bear. He’s described as an adult weighing between 200 and 250 pounds.

“Very exciting to see on the side of the freeway for sure,” said Liane Johnson, who saw the bear. “My boyfriend slammed on the brakes. We’re going 60 and I’m thinking, what the heck – we’re gonna crash!”

Johnson got out and snapped two grainy pictures of the bear munching on spring grass.

“I didn’t think I was getting very close, but my boyfriend was very stressed that the bear was gonna attack me,” she said.

There were reported bear sightings in the same area last year. Lambert believes the one spotted this year is the same bear.

Fish and Wildlife agents set a trap last year, but were unsuccessful. They’re hoping for better luck this year.

Lambert set up a trap along the interstate Monday evening.

“So far it’s bear 1, Fish and Wildlife, zero,” Lambert said.

Fish and Wildlife experts just want to trap the bear so they can move it to a more bear-friendly environment – away from the busy freeway.

Wednesday evening the trap was reset with an odiferous concoction of pickled herring, bacon grease, honey and doughnuts – sure to please the average bear.

The State Patrol hopes the trap is sprung sooner than later. They are so concerned the bear could wander into traffic causing a horrible accident, airborne troopers are conducting aerial surveillance.

And while the bear doesn’t seem to mind hanging out alongside the busy, noisy freeway, biologists say it is time for the bear to go.

 

Link

Some interesting advice here! Not sure how “official” any of the advice is, but it’s a fun read.

What’s the best way to do away with a bear if it attacks you when you don’t have a big rifle along?

I am going to go deer hunting up north this November in a big woods that always has tons of bear tracks in it. I asked my pa what I should do if one of those bears gets hungry and starts drooling on my boots while I’m hunting. He says that a bear’s heart beats so slow that it doesn’t pay to shoot it in the heart and that he heard that a bullet from a .22 won’t make it through a bear’s skull. I don’t think that I’ll have any problems with a bear as I’ll be with other people, but now I’m curious as to what to do in such a situation.

I deer hunt with a Savage 30-30 … pretty small and old, but it gets the job done, & I would never trade it in for anything! The clip can carry 3 bullets; so, I can have 4 bullets in there at a time. One for each kneecap on the bear, right?

I haven’t been bear hunting which is why I have no idea about this stuff, and I’m sure that bear hunters use much bigger rifles, but what does one do while carrying only a small rifle during a bear attack?

 

20 Answers »

1. If you’re entering bear territory, you should make loud, consistent noises the entire time as you’re walking around, so as not to startle them. This gives bears a chance to move away from the noise source. When bears are startled, that’s when they’re most aggressive and deadly.

   If you DO come across a bear standing on his hind legs – that’s when he’s in attack mode – I’ve heard that you should crap a big load in your pants. Seriously. It supposedly drives them away. You DON’T want to attack with a small gun – it will only piss the bear off more.

   Comment by Dien — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

2. use what you have

   Comment by hill bill y — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

3. You should pack some of the bear sprays that are sold at local sporting good stores. Also I was in Alaska a couple of years ago and was told that any form of scent will attract them so no scented deordant, purfume or cologne. In an attack you are susposed to lie still in a curled up position. A 30-30 can stop a bear, especially a black bear but a grizzly, brown or kodiak, you’re on your own lol

   Comment by William — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

4. Get some of the Hornady leverevolution ammo for your 30-30, if you’re a good shot with it, and can hit the bear in the eye (the bone tissue is thinnest in the ocular socket) this ammo will kill the bear with 1 shot.

   Comment by boker_magnum — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

5. Id shoot it with the 30-30. If its a black bear, it will probly kill it it anyway, but a Grizzly would be a different story. The idea of making noise while hunting is retarded. How are you supposed to see der when you are scaring off bears? If you hit it in the head, it will more than likely kill it.

   Comment by Aaron — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

6. better go with a 338 win mag thats what the alaska dnr said will pud dawn a kodick grizzy. and thats what i got and i going 2 get a s&w500 mag the stroungert handgun in the would

   Comment by joshuagertsch — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

7. if its a black bear fight back and bite it, but if it is a grizzly or brown like in Alaska kiss your butt good by

   Comment by fishslayer1986 — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

8. I’ve seen this show, and if you are hiking without a weapon, get on the ground and cover your vital areas (head. neck)
   This makes the bear think that you are not a threat to the bear. Good luck out there.

   Comment by surfer dude — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

9. Black bear will try to avoid you, they are more afraid of you than you are of them*.. You could always bare your teeth at them, it worked for Daniel Boone*…

   Comment by dca2003311@yahoo.com — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

10. Crap your pants???!!!!
    First off carrying that bear spray is the best idea here. While carrying a second large caliber rifle is unpractical what about a handgun? Six shots from a a .44 mag into a 250 pound black bear’s chest will witout a doubt drop it. If can’t buy or access a heavy revolver than aim at his head with the 30-30. It will kill it. Black bear are not that big a .30 size round won’t penetrate it’s skull. But the bear spray is best cheapest most proven way to go.

    Comment by kyle h — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

11. The .30-30 has killed more Black bear and deer than any other caliber. Although it is not my first choice if I am in bear country and I find myself in a predicament with a bear and its all I have, I’ll try for a head shot. With your Savage you get four tries (one round in the chamber and three in the magazine). And your Dad is right, bears can absorb a lot of lead so body shots may not drop him fast enough.

    Lot’s of hunters carry .44 Magnum revolvers as backup in bear country. The .44 Mag. is not better than a .30-30 carbine, so there you have it.

    Good luck and happy hunting.

    H

    Comment by H — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

12. I wouldn’t worry about it too much to be honest,I have seen black bears while hunting where I live in MI,they have always beat feet the opposite way,and although I have no expierence with the Grizzly or Kodiak,I would probably take a sidearm if i am hunting in the Grizzly area,but in black bear areas,no problem,if a sidearm is unavailable I would buy a bigger rifle I suppose.

    Comment by Boris859 — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

13. remember that all wild animals (unless they are rabid or starving) will run away before they attack. but as every hunter should know, bear will attack if you get between them and their cubs, or between food/water. and just like all other animals, if you give it no other escape rout, it will attack.
    now, for your question:
    people use the .30/30 win for black bear withing 100 yards, whether you will believe this is another matter. if i ever hunt where i know that there is a possibility that i will encounter dangerous animals like Kodiak bear i will be hunting with a buddy that has a gun or by myself with a revolver. don’t go for body shots, as bear can absorb bullets like nothing, but if you but two in its head, it will go down.
    when I’m 21, i will be getting my concealed carry permit and a pistol, somewhere in the .38, .40, .357 or .45 ACP area. nothing smaller than a .38.
    good luck hope you get the deer you want this year.

    Comment by burnzwater — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

14. if you aren’t using a ” big” rifle, then you better have a “big” back-up revolver, like a .44 magnum. also, bear spray and know how to take the safety off it and use it in a hurry. especially, keep a good look out while field dressing your deer or better yet, have a friend with you to look out while you field dress your deer. in many bear areas, they will come running to the sound of your rifle because they have become conditioned to know the sound of a gun may mean an easy meal for them.

    Comment by bghoundawg — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

15. your 30-30 deer rifle is also a good black bear gun.
    shoot a bear in the same place you shoot deer, in the heart or head a 30-30 will do the job just fine. as for the 44 mag pistol its pretty marginal. here’s the ballistics. 30-30 150 or 170 grain =more than 1600 ft. lbs. energy .44 mag pistol 7 1/5 in barrel 240 grain bullet = 971 ft lbs energy. use the same bullets for black bear as you do for deer. they probably wont exit as they are made to expand & dump all their energy inside the animal so you wont ruin the hide with a big exit wound.
    if your deer hunting in brown bear country a 338 would be a more appropriate deer rifle or at a minimum a 30-06 with controled expansion bullets, 180 gr. in the chamber for deer, 220 gr. in the magazine for back up. dont take a 30-30 into brown bear country they dont have enough penetration for grizzly.

    Comment by crash — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

16. We usually carry a big Knife as well as a firearm. Big guy + Big knife + Bear = Bloody mess = Hopefully dead Bear.
    We of course live in the land of Daniel Boone who happened to kill bears with a knife. If he can do it ,we sure can , Right?

    Comment by dirtydan2 — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

17. S&W 460 or 500 as a back up pistol. Practicing running and short sprints may help….lol

    Comment by Big D — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

18. 30 30 is plenty for blackbear, also you can get bear pepper spray so you wont have to kill in self defense hopefully

    Comment by tater — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

19. Wear Sneakers,,,,you can’t outrun a Bear,,,,,You just have to Outrun Your Pa.

    Comment by Mad Dog — April 22, 2009 @ 7:12 am

20. I had no gun and saw some black bears in Tennessee. I had watched a show about a man (I can’t recall his name) who studied bears. He said that sometims they get very juvinile and frisky. When the begin to menace you, he said to throw your arms over your head and yell at them.
    So I tried this, I yelled jibberish like I was at some pentecostal sunday meeting. This confused the bear and gave us both a chance to think about a different situation…”I think I’ll go over there, now.” He also said (and it makes sense to me) never to lay on the ground. Bears are omnivores and do eat carrion. I won’t sit still and die without giving the bear “what-for” !
    I would honor the bear but if it came down between us and I had my .45 I would aim for the eye. The eyes are also good for other situations. Most battles will end with a gouged out eye.

Link

Third Black Bear Sighting Reported In Weston

For the third time since Saturday, residents of a Weston neighborhood reported spotting a black bear in their back yards.

The million dollar estates in Windmill Reserve border suburban life and wildlife, but what Tomas Fernandez saw Sunday in his backyard was extremely wild.
 
“I was eating breakfast when I saw the bear behind the house in the lake. He was walking,” said Fernandez. “I called my dad to see.” 

His dad watched as the black bear spent a half hour in the backyard. This was enough time for Tomas to video tape his new neighbor. On the tape the bear is browsing around and then seen walking away toward trees. 

“It was about three feet tall on four legs, about that tall, but I guess if it stands up it would be much bigger,” said Tomas. 

Florida Fish and Wildlife has been searching for the bear, but haven’t found anything yet. They hope the bear is finding his way home. Jorge Pino with the FWC said finding a live black bear in South Florida is rare.

“Extremely rare, the last sighting of a live bear was in 1978 in Broward County,”  said Pino.

Occasionally black bears have had run-ins with cars. In February, a 200 pound bear ran into a car on the Turnpike near US27. Black bears are typically found in the Big Cypress Preserve but sometimes travel in search of food. The preserve is more than 30 miles away from Weston. When asked if the community should be worried about a bear attack Pino responded, “Oh no, absolutely not, there has not been a documented bear attack on human being in the state of Florida, ever.”

 Some residents are scared, but Fernandez’s mother is not worried about their furry visitor. She still goes in the backyard hoping he’ll return. Laughing Isabel said to us “why not”. 

Security guards at Windmill Reserve say they spotted the bear walking along South Post Road. If you live in the area, FWC is advising you to bring all food indoors, including pet food. You should secure your garbage cans so that a bear cannot access what is inside. If you spot a bear in your neighborhood you should call 911.

Link

It’s nice to see the Black Bear population has made such a recovery in Massachusetts.

Bears making a mess in Middleton

By Brendan Lewis/blewis@cnc.com

Tue Apr 21, 2009, 01:24 PM EDT

MIDDLETON - Winnie the Pooh has been known to say that it’s funny how much a bear loves honey. But for a Middleton family the thought of a bear stomping through their backyard isn’t exactly hilarious.

Mill Street resident Linda Wilkins said a bear visited her home twice in the past two weeks to feast on her husband’s honeybees, destroying beekeeping equipment and colonies of the nectar-bearing insect. With the bear still believed to be in the area, Wilkins said she wanted something done.

“This is a dangerous situation,” Wilkins said. “If you frighten a bear, it will come right after you.”

While no one has spotted the bear, the creature left a paw print in a honeybee hive shortly after knocking around several others that were set up around the Wilkins’ property. After help from fellow beekeepers to set them back up, Wilkins said the bear returned exactly one week later to do it all over again.

“There is a bear in this area and he is still here,” Wilkins said.

In addition to the Wilkins property, she said bears stopped by their next door neighbor’s porch to attack a few bird feeders.

“We would both like to have this thing trapped and move to another [area],” Wilkins said.

With thousands of dollars worth of water foul, such as swans and ducks, in their backyard, Wilkins’ husband, Alan, said he also worried that the bear might endanger the birds as well.

Middleton Police responded to all the incidents over at Mill Street and have referred the matter to the state Environmental Police, who stopped by the home this week. However, unless the bear causes more property damage, officials simply recommend refraining from storing any type of food, including honeybees and birdseed, outside, according to police.

“He just woke up and he’s hungry,” said Middleton Police Sgt. James DeCosta.

Marion Larson, an information and education biologist for MassWildlife, said that unless the bear cannot find its way back to a wooded area or represents an “imminent” public safety threat, the Environmental Police would not attempt to relocate the bear.

“The mere presence of a bear is not a public safety or health threat,” Larson said. “the best thing to do is not to panic.”

While the bear is coming out of hibernation now, the Wilkins family still cannot explain why they are seeing one this year.

“We’ve lived here for over 30 years, and haven’t ever seen a bear,” Wilkins said.

Larson said that the bear is most likely a young male black bear that recently left its mother.

Black bears are native to the state but reside almost entirely west of the Connecticut River. In that area of Western Massachusetts, MassWildlife said black bears have a density of 1 per square mile of forest.

With recent construction in the area, DeCosta said the bear might have been pushed from its home.

“There is so much building they are losing [habitats],” DeCosta said.

Larson said that this is not the case, though, as MassWildlife believes the black bear has not inhabited Essex County for hundreds of years.

There have been no other reported bear sightings recently in Middleton.

According to MassWildlife, the black bear population in Massachusetts has grown over the past 30 years, from only 100 in the early 1970s to 3,000 recorded in 2005.

Black bears may become aggressive when approached or teased, but will typically flee into the woods when people are around. If a bear is sighted in your neighborhood, MassWildlife suggests leaving the animal alone and letting it return to the woods.

If the bear situation occurs in a densely populated area, law enforcement officials advise calling the Environmental Police at 1-800-632-8075.

Link

Evidence mounts for Wisconsin cougars

April 21, 2009 at 02:23 PM

JAMES A. CARLSON

Associated Press Writer

CALEDONIA, Wis. (AP) – Anna Lashley can’t forget her surprise when she looked out her kitchen window three years ago and spotted a big cat.

“I looked up and there’s this lion in the back yard, and I thought it must have gotten away from the zoo,” she said. “I called the zoo, and they said they hadn’t lost one.”

She’s convinced the animal that quickly departed was a cougar, also known as a mountain lion. The animals were wiped out in most of the eastern U.S. a century ago but have recently shown up again, migrating from the Black Hills of South Dakota into places like Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Deer commonly graze on Lashley’s rural property just south of Milwaukee. During the past three years, she has seen cougars from her window several times. Her 47-year-old son, Joel Lashley, said he was there for the most recent sighting on March 28.

“It was a big one,” he said, estimating the cat was bigger than a German shepherd, wi th a tail about half as long as its body.

“It turned to the side and then just leaped right through there,” he said, pointing to the row of pine trees at the edge of the property.

The Lashleys aren’t alone in their encounters with the cats.

State game managers get scores of reported sightings each year. They try to determine which are false, which are other animals, such as bobcats, and which are cougars.

Only two cougars have been confirmed. One was seen and left clear tracks in the snow in the Milton area of Rock County in January 2008. It was killed that April by police in a Chicago alley, some 100 miles away.

Bear hunters treed the second near Spooner in Barron County in March. An attempt to tranquilize it and attach a tracking collar failed, and the animal ran off.

Along with reported sightings have come suspicions mountain lions might have injured two young horses.

Gary and Sandy Kenner of Chippewa Falls suspect a cougar mauled their 3-month-old colt last summer before the mare interceded.

“We came out, and he had a big bite out of his chest and terrible scratches on its legs,” Gary Kenner said. The colt survived.

Jim and Amanda Saxby of rural Watertown had the same suspicions about the death of their yearling quarter horse in January.

In both cases, investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled out a cougar and suggested something else, possibly fencing, caused the injuries.

But both couples have their doubts after hearing many people tell of seeing cougars.

“There’s just too many sightings,” Sandy Kenner said. “You can deny it all you want, but when that many people have seen them, they have to be there.”

The stories are familiar to Ken Jonas, a wildlife biologist supervisor with the state Department of Natural Resources in Hayward.

He said the DNR has no interest in trying to conceal how many cougars are in Wisconsin. But the only way to c onfirm sightings is with photos, good tracks or other physical evidence. In the case of the confirmed sightings, blood, hair, urine and droppings were recovered.

Cougars once lived throughout the eastern U.S., but they were eliminated in most areas by hunting and settlement at the same time a favorite prey, whitetail deer, declined in population. Until last year, a wild cougar had not been confirmed in Wisconsin since the early 1900s.

Researchers learned a lot from the cat that roamed the Milton area for three months before being shot, said Eric Anderson, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

“Here’s a cat wandering across the landscape of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, a fairly heavily populated area, and nobody saw it,” he said.

Male cougars like that have been moving out from the Black Hills. Anderson said an estimated 20 to 25 young males are believed to leave there each year and go looking for fe males, as well as food.

He expects Wisconsin will eventually have resident cougars.

But if the state had a breeding population now, some cougars would be killed on roads and found feeding on livestock and more evidence would be found in areas where the animals spent time, Jonas said.

Still, he said people venturing outdoors should be aware of potential dangers. He noted the state also has black bears and a healthy wolf population, and even a deer in rut can pose a threat.

The Lashleys said they have nothing against cougars, but they want people to be aware of their presence.

Sandy Kenner said she has no doubts the cats are here.

“I’m totally convinced. I wouldn’t jog at night anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t scare me. Just don’t be stupid.”

Cougar facts

Some facts about the cougar, also known as mountain lion, puma, panther and catamount: – The animal once ranged throughout North America, except in the extreme north. It was gradually wiped out in most of the eastern U.S. as land was cleared for agriculture and forests were cut. Hunters also killed the cats. – A favorite prey is deer, an animal whose population in the eastern U.S. dropped extremely low by the early 1900s because of hunting. – Wild cougars probably never lived in Wisconsin in very high density, but they were not uncommon. They are believed to have been eliminated in Wisconsin by about 1910. – Adult male cougars can weigh 115 to 200 pounds and females are 80 to 120 pounds. The cougar is the fourth largest cat in the world and the second largest, behind the jaguar, in North America. – Attacks on humans are rare but have occurred in the western U.S. and Canada as people moved into cougar habitat. – Cougars are a protected wild animal in Wisconsin, meaning a permit from the DNR is required before anyone can kill one.

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Great write up by a blogger who had an unexpected visitor in her neighborhood backyard – a very large Black Bear! Imagine looking out the window of your apartment and seeing that!

Please note that I live in a city of 85,000, nowhere near the edge of town or even near any woodsy places bigger than half a block or so, and that my apartment is sandwiched between three very busy streets. All the same, there’s a freakin’ bear in the yard.

This photo was taken on Thursday evening, and when I woke up that day I saw that the birdfeeder had been pulled down, but the prospect of a bear in the yard was so absurd that I didn’t seriously consider it, and i figured that the ground was soft from thawing and freezing, and maybe a really fat racoon tried to climb the shepherd’s hook or something and it tipped over. But then Mr. Bear made his presence known that evening while I was making dinner. My dinner companion called 911, but apparently the authorities don’t care about bears unless they become threatening, and are, like, actively mauling babies or something. It’s great that they’re respecting the bear’s bearness and all, but I also don’t think this is the greatest place for a very large black bear to be hanging out.

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While Black Bear attacks are incredibly rare, stories like this highlight that caution must still be used when traveling in their domain.

Surviving a bear attack Ohio family returns on anniversary of fatal bear attack on child

William Wright 

Banner Staff Writer 
Sunday, Apr 19, 2009

Susan Cenkus recently returned to the scene where her daughter was killed by a black bear on April 13, 2006. 

She and her children came from Ohio back to the camping area near Benton Falls in the Chilhowee Campground to honor 6-year-old Elora Petrasek, who did not survive the attack. 

As she stood under the waterfall last Wednesday, watching the icy waters tumble and flow, remembering her ever cheerful daughter and the joy they felt on that fatal day, Cenkus said her thoughts turned toward eternity.

“I have a real connection here. This was the place I would go to feel the presence of God. I had taken Elora here many times but I had never taken her to the waterfall — until that day.”

Images of Elora, the sound of her voice, the laughter of that day, was not hard to recall. Cenkus said she even remembers “Two weeks earlier Elora said, ‘mommie I may go to heaven before you.’”

Neither that comment nor the fact Elora was fascinated with animals stood out. Now everything about her has special meaning to her mother.

“Elora was a big animal lover,” said Cenkus. “Most little girls her age were buying Barbie dolls. Not my daughter. She was always buying stuffed animals. She would have veterinarian clinics and she would have all her animals lined up to take care of them. I learned so much from her. She had such a love for life.”

During her visited to the Sunrise Rotary Club Thursday, Cenkus spoke about the horrific day that went beyond sheer terror. 

“That morning we decided we would go up to Chilhowee. My son Christopher was performing at a Lee University program that evening. We drove up to Benton Falls and Elora wanted to go to the waterfall. I wasn’t feeling really well that day,” Cenkus recalls. 

“These are truly the last words I specifically remember Elora saying to me. She said, ‘But mommie I really want to go.’ So we traveled down to the falls. 

“When we got to the falls another couple was there, a man and wife and their two children. As we were scanning down to the creek area I looked up in the foliage and saw a black bear.”

Cenkus said because she had walked that area many times and had never seen a bear, she sensed they needed to leave. 

“I said to the couple I believe we need to get out of here. We immediately started to leave the area. As we were coming up I reached back and grabbed hold of my son Luke, who was only 2 years old.”

Elora was already ahead of everyone and had gotten back under the waterfall, according to Cenkus. 

“I remember looking at her and saying, ‘Come on we need to go.’ I turned around to reach for her hand and we started going up toward the camp.”

Cenkus said as soon as she turned back around the black bear had her son.

“He had his right paw going around my son’s head. I immediately ran toward the bear. I pulled my son from him. When I pulled Luke from the bear, I then looked at the bear. I realized he was staring at me.”

That chilling moment, nearly frozen in time, seemed surreal as a mother stood between a bear and his food, daring to put her life on the line without any hesitation. Cenkus explained that in such an unbelievable moment, “people do what needs to be done.” 

“I remembered thinking, OK what do we do here? Because that bear was staring at me and I knew he was intent on hurting me. The group had come up and around as I went back from the bear. Then the bear attacked me,” she said. 

As the 211-pound bear bit down on her neck, Cenkus said she remembers looking in the family man’s face. It was the look of horror. 

“That’s when I recognized the bear had me,” she said. “I thought, ‘I am not going to survive this but if the bear stays busy with me, the rest will survive.’”

Cenkus said she looked over to the man and yelled, “Save my children.” 

“At that point I said to the Lord, ‘I’m ready to go. Please Lord, let me go out.’ At that point I did lose consciousness.”

Cenkus said she remembers waking up later on the ground thinking what a horrible nightmare she just had.

“Then I recognized it wasn’t a nightmare. Being a nurse I was trying to assess myself — trying to find out what my pulse was. I knew I had lost a lot of blood and needed to get out of there. But I didn’t know how bad I was. I found I was totally unable to do anything whatsoever. 

“I wondered if I should call out for help or just be quiet because I knew help would come. I don’t know how much time elapsed. I had lost so much blood I was coming in and out of consciousness.”

At some point she heard a voice saying, “It’s OK, ma’am. We’re here to help you.”

It was Tennessee State Park Ranger Brad Hamby who was the first one to reach Cenkus. Her daughter was not as fortunate. Since the hike was nearly 2 miles, the speculation was that little Elora was the easiest target for the black bear to chase and catch. 

Word of the unusual bear attack swept the nation until the bear was captured, positively identified by FBI Forensic DNA specialists and finally destroyed.

Cenkus was flown to Erlanger, thankful to have survived such a vicious attack. She spent nine days in intensive care and underwent seven surgeries before being made physically whole again.

“I lost two major blood vessels in the back of my neck. My vertebra was almost torn off. Tendons were severed. My arm was almost torn off. I had stitches all through the back of my head and surgery all around my neck.”

Cenkus said it was truly a miracle that she survived and is forever thankful that she and her son Luke, who also suffered injuries, had such excellent care from Erlanger’s medical team who worked on them.

“When I woke up the first thing I remember thinking is that I know who God is. My help is built on my relationship with Jesus Christ and I hold an amazing sense of hope,” said Cenkus.

She remembers feeling compelled to tell her daughter throughout her short life that if she could not protect her, the Lord will.

“We have the hope of glory,” Cenkus said. “Maybe not in this world but in the world to come. It doesn’t mean we won’t go through perilous times. Sometimes we go through amazing tragedy and trauma in this world. There are so many people who have gone through worse than I have.

“My struggle was trying to understand what happened to my daughter. Who was with my daughter? I knew in my mind that God was with her but I kept struggling with it. That was my struggle with God. 

“Then God spoke to my heart and said, ‘You remember all the times you told Elora if I cannot be with you Jesus would be with you? 

I said, ‘Yes, I remember that.’ He said, ‘Did you believe it?’ I said, ‘Yes I did.’ And in my spirit He said, ‘There’s your answer.’”

Cenkus said the anniversary of her daughter’s death on April 13, led her to look at a corresponding scripture in the Bible — John 4:13. 

She started reading where Jesus told a woman at a well, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

“As I stood under that waterfall (Wednesday) to honor my daughter, I could hear that beautiful water rushing over the mountains,” said Cenkus. “And I thought of the eternal life that is promised us.”

Monte Williams of the U.S. Forestry Service told media representatives the attack was unusual, adding, “Black bears usually don’t attack people.”

There are approximately 1,200 to 1,500 black bears in the Cherokee National Forest, according to officials.

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Definitely follow the link for video coverage and interviews. She’s quite a courageous woman.

Woman Survives Bear Attack

Severely Disfigured Allena Hansen Drove Herself Four Miles to Get Help

By MIKE VON FREMD and IMAEYEN IBANGA

Aug. 3, 2008 —

 

Swollen and scared, Allena Hansen’s face still has the very visible scars of her encounter with a black bear 10 days ago. Large pink wounds cover her forehead and cheeks, but the 56-year-old California resident doesn’t need the physical remnants to serve as a reminder of her near-death experience.

She vividly remembers the details of what happened as she walked her dogs in Kern County, Calif.

“My first sensation was that it was a little, tiny bear, but what a bully,” Hansen said.

But the 150-pound bear was no small wonder compared to the 100-pound Hansen, and the animal pounced on her.

“I found myself down on the ground. I heard, ‘Chomp, chomp, chomp.’ I felt it go through my skull. I felt it bite through this eye,” Hansen said. “I heard kind of a squishy, crunchy pop. I went, ‘There goes my eye!’ Then it got a hold of my face and started shaking — you know, worrying it. I could feel it tearing off. I could feel the blood, the wetness; I could see it dripping, I could hear it ‘whooshing.’ And I think the one thing that was most vivid to me was watching that little bugger spit my teeth out.”

Severely injured, Hansen nearly gave up hope for her own life, until she thought of her son, and her two dogs, Decoy and Arky, came to her rescue.

“I went, you know, ‘If the dogs [are] willing to make the sacrifice, the least that I could do is make an effort,’” she said.

The dogs’ barking created enough of a distraction to allow Hansen to escape. Still, she’d have to manage to hike 10 minutes over rough terrain to make it to her car. When she arrived at the vehicle, Hansen caught the first glimpse of her injuries in the rearview mirror.

She managed to drive herself four miles to the nearest fire station.

“[It was] kind of bizarre, because I asked her her name and she told me, ‘Allena Hansen.’ And I know Allena Hansen. I didn’t recognize her. I don’t know how she was able to even see,” said Kern County fire department Capt. Curt Merrill.

Officials airlifted Hansen to UCLA Medical Center where it took surgeons more than 10 hours to put her face back together.

“She had an indentation of the bone where the bear’s claw tore through her face,” said Dr. Kimberly Lee, of UCLA Medical Center.

Now, Hansen is back at home and recovering, but her son said he’s not surprised his feisty mother survived the attack.

“I think I can safely say that it is going to take more than some punk little bear to get rid of her,” Hansen’s son Alec Newman said.

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I had no idea. So now what should we carry to defend ourselves? Or should we just not worry about it?

Is Bear Pepper Spray Legal or Illegal to have in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park?

With more than 2 black bear per square mile and around 900 miles of hiking trails and roadways in the Great Smoky Mountains national park, your chances of having a bear encounter up close or from a distance are quite good. Because of this many hikers and campers carry cans of bear pepper spray they have purchased from either outfitters or online.

Regardless of what these stores or web sites are telling you, it is ILLEGAL to carry, posses or use any form of bear spray, pepper spray, mace or any other irritant gas spray in the Great Smoky Mountains national park. This is not just a “park rule” but a weapons law on federal property – not something you want to break at any cost.

Don’t kill the messenger as I was in complete shock when I learned of this through the kindness of a park employee who read on one of my web sites my recommendation to purchase and carry bear spray when hiking or camping in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

It’s pretty obvious to anyone who hikes or goes camping in the Great Smoky Mountains national park that it is against the law to have a loaded firearm in the park. There are signs at every trailhead and this general rule – make that law – applies to most national parks.

The fact that guns are prohibited from the Great Smoky Mountains national park also appears on the back of park maps, in written park literature, is stated in lectures given by both park personal and volunteers and on the parks web site.

What is virtually impossible for the average park visitor to find anywhere is the fact that you can not carry bear spray or on your person – that includes in your backpack while in the park.

Even more confusing is the fact that if you do a general search on theGreat Smoky Mountains national park web site under “National Park Service for the term “bear spray” it describes the use of bear spray in other national parks.

Yesterday I went to a handful of local outfitters or their web sites in the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville area and they all have bear pepper spray for sale. When I asked not one told me I could not carry bear spray in the park.

As a mater of fact one of the best known outfitters in Gatlinburg whose store is so close it is almost in the GSM national park has on their web site “Bear Spray & Personal Protection For A Safe Hike In Great Smoky Mountains National Park Or In Your Own Neighborhood”.

To be further confusing many other companies online, web sites, hiker forums etc all advocate the use of Bear Pepper Spray in national parks – often specifically referencing the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

As mater of fact it is also used as a reason why guns should not be needed against a bear attack in a national park. I myself recommended it many times as a viable non lethal alternative to guns with a far lower chance of serious collateral damage to others.

I see Appalachian Trail through hikers in the Great Smoky Mountains national park as a group unknowingly breaking this law quite regularly and since their travels take them through various jurisdictions with varying laws they are at a greater risk of being caught up in breaking this weapons law on federal property.

In case you are wondering what the exact law is and if it has been misinterpreted by me here it is:

TITLE 36–PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC PROPERTY

CHAPTER I–NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

PART 2_RESOURCE PROTECTION, PUBLIC USE AND RECREATION–Table of Contents
Sec. 2.4 Weapons, traps and nets.

(a)(1) Except as otherwise provided in this section and parts 7 (special regulations) and 13 (Alaska regulations), the following are prohibited:
(i) Possessing a weapon, trap or net
(ii) Carrying a weapon, trap or net
(iii) Using a weapon, trap or net
Definition of a weapon is described below:

TITLE 36–PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC PROPERTY

CHAPTER I–NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

PART 1_GENERAL PROVISIONS–Table of Contents

Sec. 1.4 What terms do I need to know?
Weapon means a firearm, compressed gas or spring-powered pistol or rifle, bow and arrow, crossbow, blowgun, speargun, hand-thrown spear, slingshot, irritant gas device, explosive device, or any other implement designed to discharge missiles, and includes a weapon the possession of which is prohibited under the laws of the State in which the park area or portion thereof is located.

If you have purchased bear pepper spray through one of my web sites for use only in the GSMNP and you wish to return it, contact me through the site and I will arrange for you to be able to return it for a full refund.

If you own bear spray, don’t bring it into the Great Smoky Mountains national park and I suggest you call any other place you wish to carry it before you bring it there.

If you are not happy with the law banning the use of Bear Spray in the GSMNP, don’t harass the park employees, complain to your congressman or Washington.

As for my recommendation to the national park, I would consider adding a written notice that bear spray or any irritant gas device is illegal to posses in the GSMNP on:

• Park bulletin boards – the first one being at the beginning of the AT in Fontana.
• The black bear page on the parks web site
• Printing it on future bear, hiking and camping literature
• On the back of future issues of park maps where other park rules are located right next to where it says firearms are prohibited.

There are questions as to the effectiveness of Bear Spray and well as potential safety issues for those not properly trained in its use.

I also as that if you have a hiking or camping forum you post in, blog, MySpace or Facebook page you let others know about this law by linking to this page at:

http://yoursmokies.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-bear-pepper-spray-legal-or-illegal.html

As always comments are not only welcome but encouraged.

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Bears are waking up in the Pacific Northwest, so caution is always advised.

ODFW Offers Tips for Avoiding Problems With Bears

Salem-News.com

A wildlife biologist says a few precautions can prevent most of the problems that people have with bears.

(CLACKAMAS, Ore.) – Spring is a time of renewal in Oregon and around the Pacific Northwest. It is also the time of year when bears wake up from their long winter naps and come out of their dens to look for food.

Unfortunately, many of these animals get themselves into trouble by looking for meals in all the wrong places – porches, sheds, garages, garbage cans, barbecues, kennels and bird feeders, where they can become a nuisance … or worse.

Not only do these incidents pose a threat to the bear, which may have to be destroyed if the behavior continues, they can also pose a threat to humans who may have a run-in with one of Oregon’s largest wildlife species.

Every spring, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife responds to calls from individuals from all over the state concerned about some kind of encounter they have had with a black bear.

Oregon is home to about 25,000 to 30,000 bears. While sightings are not unusual, bear attacks on humans are extremely rare. Even so, any contact with a bear, or any other wild animal for that matter, should be considered potentially dangerous and be avoided if at all possible.

A few precautions can prevent most of the problems that people have with bears, according to Dave Bostick, assistant district wildlife biologist for the North Willamette Watershed District.

“The fixes are pretty simple,” said Bostick. “Don’t feed the bears – intentionally or unintentionally.”

Unsecured garbage is one of the leading causes of conflicts between bears and humans, according to Bostick, who recommends keeping garbage cans inside a garage or shed until the morning of pick-up service.

“Don’t put it out the night before or you’re asking for problems,” said Bostick.

Pet food bowls left out side and bird feeders improperly hung are the other primary sources of problems, he said. Pets should be fed inside, and bird feeders should be hung away from the side of a building or trunk of a tree so bears cannot get to them. Store extra bird seed in a secured location, and keep the area under bird feeders clean. Compost piles should be covered and outdoor barbecues kept clean.

The object is to take away any incentive for bears to come around, and it usually boils down to food. These precautions are much more effective if everybody in the neighborhood follows them.

“If you follow these tips but the person down the street doesn’t, they could still cause bear problems for you and your neighbors,” Bostick said. He suggested that if bears are found venturing into a neighborhood that people work cooperatively with each other and ODFW to resolve the problem.

All of these precautions are aimed at keeping bears from habituating themselves to humans because if they lose their fear of people it can become a potentially dangerous situation.

ODFW recommends that in the unlikely event a person encounters a bear they react as follows:· Give the bear a way to escape· Steer clear of bear cubs· Stay calm and do not run or make sudden movements· Back away slowly as you face the bear· Consider talking to it in a firm tone of voice to let it know you are a human· Avoid direct eye contact with the bear.· If you are attacked, fight back, shout, be aggressive, use rocks, sticks and hands to fend off an attack

For more information about living with black bears, visit the ODFW Web site at: dfw.state.or.us/wildlife/living_with/black_bears.asp.

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The more I read about bear attacks, the more I hope to never have to be in an encounter like this.

Recreating in Bear Country
Posted: Thursday, Apr 09, 2009 – 12:11:00 pm MDT

By Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Following are suggestions from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on what recreationists can do to prevent conflicts with bears.

Tips For Recreating In Bear Country

• In Montana, assume bears are present whether there are reports of bears in the area or not.

• Carry and know how to use bear spray. 

• Let someone know where you are going and when you plan to return.

• Travel in groups of three or more people whenever possible and plan to be out in the daylight hours.

• Stay on trails or rural roads.

• Watch for bear sign such as bear scat, diggings, torn-up logs and turned over rocks.

• Keep children close.

• Announce your presence with voices or whistles when you are near streams, thick forest or winding trails where visibility is low.

• Avoid approaching a bear, respect their space and move off.

• Follow all forest service food storage orders including keeping food stored securely and maintaining a clean camp.

Tips For Bear Encounters

• Do not run from a bear. Running may trigger a natural predator-prey attack response.

• Make certain you have bear spray at the ready.

• Immediately pick up small children and stay in a group.

• Move away from the bear, if it is possible to do so.

• Throw a kerchief or other object on the ground—but not food items or a backpack with food in it – a  as you move away to distract the animal’s attention.

• If a black bear approaches, try to scare it away by shouting or making noise.

• If a black or grizzly bear attacks at night while you’re in a tent, fight back aggressively with sticks or stones.

• If a grizzly bear attacks during the day, most experts recommend playing dead by curling up in a ball face down. Use your hands and arms to protect the back of your neck and face, and keep your backpack on for added protection. Do not move or make noise until you are sure the bear has left the area. 

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One thing this article is missing is the use of pepper spray. If you’re hiking in an area where dangerous wildlife is common, its best to have that handy.

ANIMAL ATTACKS – AVOIDING AND DEALING WITH THEM

 

Wild animal attacks are not common. Dogs that live among us are a much more common danger. But there is something about being attacked by a wild animal that is especially disturbing. Of course, we want to avoid this nightmare, and if unavoidable, we want to survive it. Some tips on doing both follow.

Moose Attacks

More common than bear attacks, moose attacks can be just as dangerous. A bull moose can weigh over 1500 pounds. Attacks in the fall, during the mating season, are most likely. Winter is the second most common time – they are just pissed off because of all the snow and lack of things to eat.

Be especially watchful during fall and winter then to avoid an attack. When you see a moose, watch closely. Do its ears fold back, or the hair on its neck stand up? Does it clench it’s teeth? These signs show that it is upset and may attack you.

Go behind something big, like a boulder or tree. If possible, run and get into a stand of trees, but be sure they are not too bushy – you need room to maneuver, in case the moose continues the chase. The good news is that most moose attacks are “bluff attacks,” which end shortly after they begin.

Mountain Lion Attacks

These animal attacks are not normally a bluff. Fight with everything you’ve got, using rocks, your walking stick, a knife – anything. A jogger in Colorado successfully got a cougar to let go of his head (it was in the animal’s jaws) by sticking his thumb into the cat’s eye. You have to convince the mountain lion that you’re too not the easy meal he thought you were.

Before an attack – when you and the cat are looking at each other – your goal is the same. Let him know you’re trouble, and look big, by standing tall with your jacket opened up. Yell, and slowly back away while looking for a weapon. Whatever you do, don’t turn and run or crouch down – these behaviors will trigger the mountain lion’s instinct to attack.

Bear Attacks

These come in two forms. The classic bluff attack is meant to scare you away, but may also kill you due to the size and strength of most bears. You can often survive by curling up on the ground and holding your hands around the back of your neck (to protect it).

The animal attacks when you surprise or threaten it – or its cubs. Bears in these circumstances make a lot of noise and may charge you repeatedly, stopping before contacting you. Avoid eye-contact and back away slowly.

The other type of bear attack is predatory. These are rare, but both black bears and grizzlies occasionally prey on humans for food. Such attacks are quieter. The bear will have its head down and come straight at you, watching you closely. He is assessing whether you are an easy meal or not.

In this case, don’t play dead or you will be dinner. Yell, make noise, and look for a weapon. In a worst-case scenario, you might have to fight for your life. Fortunately, most adult grizzly bears can’t climb trees, so if there is a lot of space still between you (these bears are fast), you can try climbing to safety.

Various Other Animal Attacks

Elephants may swing their trunks, kick up dirt and hold their ears out before an attack – and make noise. Get yourself behind a large rock or tree. If that isn’t an option, run downhill – elephants are slower going downhill.

Snakes usually are just warning you, so step away slowly. It is very unlikely that a snake will chase you. Avoid the problem to begin with by watching the trail carefully and probing with a walking stick before stepping over logs.

Get between mother baboon and her baby, and the whole troop may attack. Back away, while shouting and clapping. Drop any food you have in your hands, and don’t yawn or stare – these are signs of aggression to baboons.

Don’t feed wild animals, or provoke them. Learn to use the zoom function on the camera instead of getting closer to dangerous animals. Basically, just use common sense to avoid animal attacks, and the rules above to deal with them.

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It’s stalked skiers and chased a hiker up a tree. Scary!

Rogue black bear already stirring up urban trouble
ANCHORAGE: Animal has pursued skiers, treed a hiker in park.

By JAMES HALPIN
Breakup has hardly begun, and already a suspected rogue black bear with a growing reputation for chasing people and eating trash along Far North Bicentennial Park has landed itself in the cross hairs of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

During one burst of activity last month, the animal treed a fleeing man and stalked trail users in the park, trotting behind as they skied away.

“We don’t like it when black bears follow and chase people,” said Rick Sinnott, Anchorage biologist for Fish and Game. “So my plan is to shoot him if I can find him.”

The bear’s most recent appearance came Wednesday evening at the upper Huffman home of Anchorage police Lt. Dave Parker. The animal ambled up to a porch outside the bedroom and came nose-to-nose with Parker’s wife, who caught a photo of the early riser nuzzling an empty case of Budweiser Select.

“He’s a pretty surly boar,” Parker said. “He’s obviously accustomed to people.”

Last summer, Anchorage saw a rash of human-bear encounters, including two serious brown bear maulings in Bicentennial Park. Now, after a short winter lull, things are off to an early start. April is usually when bears begin stirring, but this black bear, described as an adult male, appears to have been up since early March, Sinnott said.

Reports of a black bear rooting through garbage and feasting on birdseed have come in from neighborhoods on just about every corner of the park, he said.

On March 21, the bear treed an Anchorage man on the Basher Trail near Campbell Airstrip. The man told authorities he was forced to climb to escape the animal, that he got the attention of people walking with dogs, and the dogs chased the bear away.

Alaska Wildlife Troopers found fresh bear tracks and hair but were unable to locate the animal.

In the days following, a bear that Sinnott assumes is the same one chased skiers on two occasions in Bicentennial Park, each time popping up behind the people and trotting toward them as they skied away. One person was pursued for about 10 minutes as he skied to avoid the bear, Sinnott said.

“You never know. Sometimes bears are curious,” he said. “But when they’re doing that for 10 minutes, that’s more than just a little bit of curiosity.”

When he got word of the chases, Sinnott headed out to the area and patrolled in the mornings and evenings for a few days, finding some fresh tracks but no bear. He said he doesn’t plan to patrol for the bear, but will wait for someone to call it in.

Relocating the bear isn’t an option because that isn’t generally effective, Sinnott said. Bears often don’t survive and, if they don’t come back, they just cause the problems elsewhere, he said.

“The biggest problem with moving bears out of Anchorage is neither the Kenai, the Mat-Su Valley nor the area across Knik Arm from us wants any of our bears,” Sinnott said. “They’re chock full of their own bears and they have their own bear problems.”

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Wolves were reintroduced to Idaho 14 years ago by the Federal Government, and many are not happy with the results of that program.

Anger over wolf management erupts

Foes of Canis lupus threaten ‘grassroots uprising’ if delisting delayed

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By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff WriterAnger over conservationists’ efforts to block the removal of federal protections for wolves boiled over Saturday night during a meeting of hunters and anti-wolf activists in Hailey.

Setting the tone for the night was outspoken anti-wolf activist Ron Gillett of Stanley, director of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition. Gillett predicted that a lawsuit by conservation groups will derail the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s move to delist wolves from the federal Endangered Species Act.

“The wolf lovers will not allow it to happen,” he said. “They are never going to be delisted. They are never going to be hunted.”

Sponsored by the Deer Hunters of Idaho, a regional hunting organization working to maximize deer populations in the state, the meeting at the Hailey Community Campus drew more than a 100 people from the Wood River Valley and surrounding states of Montana and Wyoming. Except for a few wolf supporters, most in the crowd were hunters upset by attempts to block the handover of wolf management to states.

Bumper stickers on pickup trucks outside the event proclaiming messages such as “I Like My Canadian Wolf Fried” and “Wolves: Government Sponsored Terrorists” were an indication of the crowd’s hostility towards the predators. Many in the crowd believe Idaho is on the verge of losing its game herds to wolves.

Several hunters made it clear they don’t believe reports from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game that suggest, except in a few specific cases across the state, that elk populations are at or just a bit below normal. Rather, they claim conservationists and state wildlife officials are complicit in a cover-up about declining game herds.

“We’re going to run out of game in seven to eight years,” said Tony Mayer, co-founder of the Twin Falls-based group Save Our Elk, which calls for aggressive wolf management.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s delisting rule for the region’s gray wolves was published in the Federal Register on April 1. The move put in motion a 30-day countdown to the removal of wolves from the ESA.

If all goes as planned, wolves will lose their protected status in all of Idaho and Montana and in portions of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Utah. Because federal officials have deemed Wyoming’s wolf management plan inadequate, the delisting will not extend to wolves in that state.

Distrust of state and federal wildlife biologists and their intentions for wolves and the preservation of big game herds in the region was a theme voiced throughout the evening. Speakers claimed that state wildlife managers are in bed with the same conservation groups that are trying to keep them from taking over management from the federal government.

“The Idaho Fish and Game has people in there that are wolf lovers,” Gillett said.

He joined others in calling for an unspecified type of “civil disobedience” should the delisting not proceed as planned. Legislation that anti-wolf activists are attempting to have introduced into the Idaho Legislature would protect anyone accused of taking part in the “grassroots uprising,” he added without elaborating.

State wildlife managers were invited to the meeting by the organizers. Sitting near the front of the large auditorium as Gillett and others berated the agency were Cal Groen, director of Fish and Game, and Jerome Hansen, the department’s Magic Valley regional supervisor. Later in the meeting, Groen tried to convince the irate crowd that Fish and Game’s goal is to manage wolves in concert with big game herds just like any other predator species in Idaho, including black bears and cougars.

It’s a message the department has voiced over and over in recent years, only to be met with suspicion from both sides of the emotional issue, anti-wolf activists and conservationists alike.

Dave Burke, who lives in eastern Idaho and is a hunting and fishing outfitter both close to home and in Canada and Alaska, angrily denounced the belief that wolves live in balance with game herds. Rather, Burke claimed that wolves are creating “death zones” in Idaho’s backcountry devoid of big game.

“These things are huge—they’re monsters,” he said. “They eat the fetus. It’s like candy for them. They don’t kill to eat, they kill for fun.”

Though present for the meeting, the small contingent of conservationists kept quiet throughout the night. After being pointed to and mentioned repeatedly by Gillett, local pro-wolf activist Lynne Stone left without speaking about midway through the night. Conservationists’ attempts to film the meeting were quickly rebuffed by organizers.

Still, not everyone in the crowd was predicting as dire a scenario as speakers like Gillett. Spending much of his speech discussing why he believes a wolf hunt is needed was Matt Douthit of Bellevue, president of Deer Hunters of Idaho.

“Management of these wolves is long overdue,” he said.

Douthit, who has been filming the valley’s Phantom Hill wolf pack hunting elk near Sun Valley and Greenhorn Gulch, claimed that Fish and Game’s efforts to haze the pack away from homes is only causing them to hunt at night.

“I’m thinking hazing is not the best management tool for these wolves,” he said.

Hunters also allege that many more wolves live in the valley than Fish and Game admits. Bellevue’s Billy Ward, another meeting organizer, said signs of wolves are visible up and down the valley.

“We have five to six wolf packs,” he said.