Bear Mauling Banner Forest

[+hydnsek]

Posted today on the Seattle Times site:

 

"Fish and Wildlife agents have been unable to trap the bear that attacked a man in a park north of Gig Harbor. So officials will be reopening Banner Forest Heritage Park on Monday with plenty of warning signs posted."

[+Belleterre]

"Fish and Wildlife agents have been unable to trap the bear that attacked a man in a park north of Gig Harbor. So officials will be reopening Banner Forest Heritage Park on Monday with plenty of warning signs posted."

Yippee! It's been a bummer to drive by and see all the baricades. Can't wait to get back in there.

 

Although I'll probably be too chicken to go in alone for awhile.

 

I have mixed feelings on the bear and that mostly has to do with questions about what truly happened. One article made it sound like the bear went through the dogs and deliberately went after the guy. That's a bear that probably needs to be put down - relocation isn't going to keep him from hurting other people. But what mitigating factors were there?

 

I guess I'm rooting for the bear for the most part. But I'd really prefer he didn't run into my yard which is only 1.5 miles away. There have been several bear sightings within my tiny neighborhood over the years and it's never bothered me, but this one has me a little jumpy. (I don't have a gun, so no-one has to worry about me shooting him.)

[+Shop99er]

This was just on the Yahoo news:

 

Hungry bears plague US west after record drought

by Judith Crosson

 

DENVER, United States (AFP) - They hosed the black bear with water, threw things at it and yelled, but the stubborn animal refused to move from its perch in a tree above a quiet neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado.

 

Pushed from their homelands by a drought and pulled by the scent of human food, black bears across western US states are breaking into homes and tearing up garbage cans in a desperate search for nourishment ahead of hibernation.

 

Fires across the west also destroyed bear habitat, and the animals face the continuing peril of losing their living space to urban development.

 

The bear in the Boulder neighborhood finally came down from the tree and fled. The animal was lucky -- it wore an ear tag, meaning a previous run in with authorities.

 

Authorities would have killed the bear if they had caught it, said Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

 

This year is on target for approaching the 2002 record of 404 bears killed or euthanized, Baskfield said. Colorado has a population of between 8,000 and 12,000 bears.

 

"We had a late freeze in June which killed the acorns and berry crop. We had a very dry mid-summer and grasses in the high country dried up. That pushed the bears down into the valleys where we have people," Baskfield said.

 

It is a similar story in much of the western United States.

 

"Just everybody is seeing bears everywhere. That's the unusual part of it -- in places where they haven't been seen before," said state of Idaho Fish and Game wildlife biologist Bret Stansberry.

 

"It's a fairly severe drought and that's essentially the root of the problem. There is very little natural food for them to eat. They're coming into orchards, getting into apple trees," Stansberry said.

 

Adult male black bears, which weigh between 68 and 160 kilos (150 and 350 pounds), usually eat for up to 20 hours a day just before hibernation in November.

 

State wildlife agencies are constantly urge residents to use bear-proof garbage cans and make sure no food is left outdoors, with mixed results.

 

Chris Healy, spokesman for the state of Nevada Department of Wildlife, said bears are posing increasing problems. "We had one up a tree today near the university," he said.

 

Any area that has trees and shrubs resembles a bear's natural habitat, and when the bear spots a human it usually flees up a tree, Healy said.

 

Nevada has a small population of black bears, mostly concentrated in the Lake Tahoe region near the California border.

 

"In Tahoe people are not taking care of their garbage. Once the bears start breaking into houses it's a danger to humans," Healy said.

 

Bear attacks on people are rare, although there was a fatal attack in July when a bear dragged an 11 year-old boy out of his tent during a camping trip in the state of Utah.

 

Bears are causing plenty of trouble in California, said the state's Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Jason Holley.

 

"They can blow the door off the hinges. This time of year we're having at least three break-ins a night around Lake Tahoe," Holley said.

 

Eating human food such as donuts, hamburgers, or ice cream fattens the bears up and allows them to have more cubs. "We're developing an alarming trend -- ten percent are not hibernating," Holley said.

 

Black bears in California have not faced competition from their natural rival, the larger grizzly bear, for nearly a century. The last known grizzly in California was shot dead in 1922. California however still has a grizzly bear on its state flag.

 

There are about 30,000 black bears in California today, up from 12,500 bears 12 years ago, Holley said.

 

In Montana, a non-profit group has come up with an original way to chase bears away from camping areas.

 

The Wind River Bear Institute trains Karelian dogs, a species from northern Europe, to use their scent to detect bears, program biologist Russ Talmo said. "The dogs are barking, we're yelling at the bears, we use noisemakers," Talmo said. The dogs, which resemble huskies, are nimble and can herd a bear away from the area, although the dogs are always close to humans.

[+Belleterre]

3rd hand official scoop on the bear attack::

 

This weekend, I heard a rumor that the guy was harassing the bear and had sicced his dogs on it, so I asked around a little and this is the story that got to me today.

 

My friend Sue is a friend of one of the guys who took the injured man to the hospital and this is the story as he heard it directly from the idiots mouth:

 

The man came across the bear and cubs and sicced his dogs on them. He also ran after the bears himself. Mama correctly took exception to this and attacked him. He also stated very firmly that he did NOT want the bear to be put down. Duh! So maybe the comments about it definately being a male were to try to protect the mama.

 

Am I the only one that thinks she missed a good opportunity to qualify him for the Darwin Awards?

[+hydnsek]

3rd hand official scoop on the bear attack::

 

This weekend, I heard a rumor that the guy was harassing the bear and had sicced his dogs on it, so I asked around a little and this is the story that got to me today.

 

My friend Sue is a friend of one of the guys who took the injured man to the hospital and this is the story as he heard it directly from the idiots mouth:

 

The man came across the bear and cubs and sicced his dogs on them. He also ran after the bears himself. Mama correctly took exception to this and attacked him. He also stated very firmly that he did NOT want the bear to be put down. Duh! So maybe the comments about it definately being a male were to try to protect the mama.

 

Am I the only one that thinks she missed a good opportunity to qualify him for the Darwin Awards?

[+uxorious]

3rd hand official scoop on the bear attack::

 

Sounds like urban legend material to me. Not saying it didn't happen that way, but I think it is unlikely.

 

Unless I hear something more official then 3rd hand scoop, I will go with whats been reported so far.

[+TotemLake]

3rd hand official scoop on the bear attack::

 

Sounds like urban legend material to me. Not saying it didn't happen that way, but I think it is unlikely.

 

Unless I hear something more official then 3rd hand scoop, I will go with whats been reported so far.

I'm with you on that. Particularly when the official report says he was pretty adamant about the bear being male and not female.

[+eagsc7]

I recall back in the '50s when my brother first started hiking and REI was a small co-op, one of the codes of hiking was never to bring dogs because they attracted and caused bear attacks. Everyone knew this. Everyone hiked with bear bells. Things are different now, but no one bothered to tell the bears. ...That is the few bears that remain. ...One less bear now.

 

From the article it sounds like it was a Mama bear protecting her cubs from attacking dogs. But now they are determined to kill the mama bear. How sad.

 

Why didn't they kill the dogs. Its simple. Bear eats while human gets away.

 

Trev

[+-Hawk-]

 

Why didn't they kill the dogs. Its simple. Bear eats while human gets away.

 

Trev