Black Bear Fatal Attack and Maulings

Wow. sad.

My wife is having a fit; she has been telling me to pack a pistol when we go hiking but I didn't see any need in it with Black Bears. The only other thing I can see that might have helped this mom is a flare.

It is time, in many areas, to open regulated bear hunts; this will help develop the "fear of man" instinct and reduce the likelihood of bear attacks.

Lee

not sure that would help much - black bear hunting is allowed in both Canada and Alaska, where the most incidences of black bears attacking humans offensively (with intent to eat them) have occured.

i think it's just a matter of hunger - or, perhaps in this case as the article suggested, someting wrong with the bear.

it has helped to reduce the incidence of nuisance bears in New Jersey - over 130 culled last year.

caused by bad people behavior

most animal problems in my opinion are actually people problems - people behaving poorly

right you are - "nuisance people" (NOT a reference to the family posted link - rather those that think it's cute to feed the bears or otherwise habituate them to humans) is probably a more correct term for the problem - but we have laws in this country against culling humans.

Edited by pj on 04/14/2006 12:41:08 MDT.

"Using traps baited with honey buns and doughnuts, wildlife officials Friday tried to capture a black bear that killed......

- Honey buns and doughnuts, just don't try the bear claws. This is going to ruin that ole bears new diet and he was just starting to see results! lol! How bout a cup a jo wit that there hona bun beary ole boy. The bears in the area are really put off lately, they have all the doughnuts they can eat, but no coffee to wash it down with. We should start a charity, "Jo for Teddy"-a non profit dedicated to converting bears everywhere to the Star Bucks brand! lol!

All humans being dumb jokes aside, it is a shame for both the people involved and for the local bear population. Whenever there is an attack it affects both the people who are now probably to afraid to go back out in the wilderness for fear of bears, and the bears who will be further misunderstood. As for the people being responsible, I dought very much that the victims could have brought this attack on through any act of their own. It takes many encounters for a bear to slowly become used to people, much less veiw them as some sort of a food source. I agree with Sharon Moore(the forestry spokeswoman) that the bear probably suffered from some desease or had been habituated to people over a considerable period of time. Even if they had not bear bagged or something, it would not be enough to encourage such a brual attack.

the people who wound up suffering the bear attack may have done nothing wrong - could have been you or me. But if other people's behaviors have contributed to the bear's lack of fear of humans or even identifying them as a food source, it's still a human created problem not a bear problem. that's exactly why it is now a felony in national parks if a bear gets your food (felony charged to the person, not to the bear).

most all non-defensive bear confrontations in the lower 48 (and a lot of the defensive confrontations too) are a direct result of people doing exactly what they shouldn't be doing - usually multiple people over a period of time.

the result can be: some poor person doing nothing wrong winds up getting nailed. and of course the bear is killed.

Considering they "were here first", and the extreme downside of a bad encounter, it makes a lot of sense to leave them alone and avoid, or watch from a distance. It's kind of hard for them to attack from 100's to 1000's of yards away.

This is in sharp contrast to what we were told 40 years ago at Yellowstone by the rangers: Smear cheese on you windows and the bears will come up and lick it off...
Amazing more people weren't killed then.

Wonder what the policy will be in another 40 years...
MikeB

Edited by eaglemb on 04/14/2006 15:45:23 MDT.