CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) ― The daughter of a hiker killed by a grizzly bear shortly after the animal awoke from tranquilizers says researchers may have taken down signs warning passers-by of their work near Yellowstone National Park.

A 430-pound grizzly bear killed Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., on June 17. Earlier that day, two members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, which studies the animals in Yellowstone, had examined the bear after it was caught in a baited snare.

Mara Domingue, of Ventress, La., said her father had seen a sign days before the attack warning people about the research. But the Park County sheriff’s deputy who recovered Evert’s body reported seeing no signs in the area, Sheriff Scott Steward said.

Domingue said she believes researchers removed the signs as they left, leading her father to believe there was no longer any danger. Except for an area a couple hundred yards off the trail, no other places were marked with warning signs and the trail remained open, she said.

Evert was attacked by the bear not long after it woke from tranquilizers. He was neither armed nor carrying bear spray, the sheriff’s office said.

Evert, a botanist, often went hiking in the forest south of the cabin, typically following a trail a mile or two up Kitty Creek before bushwhacking to a ridgetop overlooking the cabin he owned with his wife, Domingue said.

“I’ve been on every single mountain in that whole drainage with my father. We’ve encountered bears many, many, many, many, many times,” she said. “We’ve never had any incidents with bears, because none of the bears have been harassed, or baited or snared.”

Grizzly team leader Chuck Schwartz, with the U.S. Geological Survey in Bozeman, Mont., declined to comment on the mauling circumstances, saying they will be investigated. Federal wildlife authorities outside the team will conduct the investigation, he said.

Team policy requires grizzly researchers to tape warning signs to trees, Schwartz said.

“We have a printed sign that essentially warns people that there is grizzly bear trapping in the area. That sign basically says the area behind the sign is closed,” he said Tuesday.

The signs are marked with the dates during which the area remains closed, he said.

Domingue said signs should have been posted at the trailhead and cabin owners in the area notified.

“Nobody was informed what the heck was going on up there,” she said.

The nearby Crossed Sabres Guest Ranch was aware of the work, said Linda McCoy, manager of the dude ranch across U.S. 14-16-20 from the Evert cabin.

“We were notified that they were snaring bears in two areas that they used. They asked us to quit using one of the trails for two weeks, which we did,” she said.

The ranch has since resumed pack trips up the trail.

Two days after the attack, trackers following a signal from a radio collar on the grizzly shot the bear from a helicopter. DNA tests confirmed the bear killed was the grizzly that attacked Evert.

McCoy said she has had to field question from people who’ve booked visits to the dude ranch and heard about the attack.

“It was an accident, and we don’t anticipate future problems,” she said.

via Family Of Man Killed By Bear Says Warnings Removed – cbs4denver.com.

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You’d really think they’d stop fishing there. I would.

Harare, Jan 18 – Eight fish poachers have been killed by crocodiles in a major dam in Zimbabwe in the last two weeks, media reports said Sunday.

A ninth victim was severely injured when he was attacked by a crocodile on Lake Chivero outside the capital Harare Saturday, the state-controlled Sunday Mail reported, quoting national park authority spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo.

The bodies of only two of the eight victims have been found, she said. Wildlife experts say crocodiles seize their prey and store them in underwater hollows, returning to consume them after several days.

Lake Chivero is Harare’s largest water reservoir.

‘These people included men and women and all of them were poachers,’ Washaya-Moyo said. Fellow poachers have not been deterred as they keep returning to the same site.

The poachers wade waist-deep into the water and angle for fish with bamboo rods. A section of the lake controlled by the national park authorities is a favourite spot for poachers from a nearby squatter camp who hawk fish to passing motorists on a nearby main road.

Washaya-Moyo said wildlife authorities were trying to minimise crocodile attacks, but did not give details.

Of all Africa’s species of large mammals and reptiles, hippopotami are regarded as being responsible for the most human deaths, followed by crocodiles.