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A flurry of black bear attacks has been covered in the media in the summer of 2024. Five people were injured in the attacks. The first occurred in Alaska at a campground near Anchorage, by a male bear. The bear injured a woman’s face after scratching and biting its way into the couple’s tent. She was treated at a hospital. There was no food or other items that usually attract bears inside the tent and it’s not clear what prompted the rare encounter, Wardlow said. “These folks who were involved did everything right and this is just a very unusual...

On November 8, 2023, the Sierra County Sheriff’s deputies performed a welfare check on 71-year-old Patrice Miller at her home in Downieville, California. At the house rented by Miller, they found a gruesome scene. The door had been broken in, and there was bear scat on the porch. What was left of Miller’s body was inside. The bear had been feeding on it for several days. California has a rapidly growing bear population and rapidly increasing numbers of bear-human conflicts.Downieville is a small village at the confluence of the Yuba and North Downie rivers, 54 miles west of Reno, Nevada....

A 71-year-old woman who was found dead inside her home had been fatally mauled by a black bear... Patrice Miller’s body was discovered inside her Downieville home in November last year by police who had been called to carry out a welfare check. Officers discovered a grisly scene with evidence that a bear had been inside, likely for several days, feeding on the woman’s remains. ... Initially, investigators thought she had died before to the bear’s entry. However, an autopsy report completed last month revealed Miller was killed when the animal swiped or bit her neck, Sierra County Sheriff Mike...

A Minnesota woman leapt into action when a black bear began to chase her dog, and fearing for his life, ran after them. Bailey Jacobson was leaving her Maple Grove house with the family dog, Zeus, on Tuesday night, when they came face-to-face with a group of unexpected visitors. A home security camera captured the hair-raising moment Zeus began trotting in the direction of a mama bear, who was digging through a garbage can with three cubs at her side. The cubs fled as the German shepherd drew near, with Jacobson trailing behind obliviously. Once she saw the mama bear,...

Six people who shared a meal involving black bear meat kebabs have been diagnosed with trichinellosis, a parasitic zoonotic disease. In a new report released this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that in July 2022, a 29-year old hospitalized patient with suspected trichinellosis was reported to the Minnesota health department. His symptoms included fever, severe muscle aches, periorbital edema or eye swelling, and eosinophilia or the condition of elevated levels of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell. According to the report, a week prior to the symptoms appearing, the patient and eight other people...

A Pennsylvania woman is recovering in a hospital after a vicious assault by a mother bear .. The incident reportedly took place around 8:30 p.m. just outside the victim’s house. Lee Ann Galante, 55, stepped out to let her dog, a small black Pomeranian, enjoy the backyard, ... With injuries across her arm, face, neck and head, Galante’s condition necessitated urgent medical attention, police said,.. She was rushed to the nearby hospital following the attack ... "I thought I was going to die." A woman who was hospitalized after being mauled . ... Galante shared her ordeal from her hospital...

On February 15, 2024, the Florida House passed CS/HB 87: Taking of Bears. The bill passed 88 to 29. It will now be sent to the Florida Senate. The bill has been prompted by a burgeoning black bear population in Florida, which has increased exponentially from 300 – 500 bears in 1974 to 2,650 in 2002 to an estimated 4,350 in 2016. No official population estimate has been made for eight years. The bear population increased 60% from 2002 to 2014/15. If the trend continues into 2024, the black bear population will be estimated at over 6,000. Cubs are not...

Wildlife officials are once again urging people in Sevier County to keep their distance from bears after a concerning video from Gatlinburg over the weekend. The video shot on Sept. 3 in downtown Gatlinburg shows people getting a little too close for comfort to a black bear. The Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency says there are proper steps you should take if you find yourself in this situation. While spotting a bear in Downtown Gatlinburg is not uncommon, TWRA spokesperson Matt Cameron said some of the people in the video were dangerously close. “When they started approaching it and chasing it...

Mark Skage rescued a baby moose from the side of a busy highway in British Columbia, Canada. He was consequentially fired by his employer, AFD Petroleum Inc., who let him go for breaking wildlife protocols. 'I just couldn't do it, in my heart … Black bears are the number one predator for those calves,' Skage said to CBC. 'So I just thought, 'Well, I can't take care of the predator, but I guess maybe I can try and help out this little calf.' Skage told CBC News that he noticed the calf alone on the side of the road, with...

On June 16, near Groom Creek, in Arizona, 66-year-old Steven Jackson was sitting on his camp chair, having coffee at an outdoor table, when a 300 lb male black bear attacked him. The attack appears to have been unprovoked and predatory in nature. Groom Creek is a few miles South of Prescott, about 100 miles north of Phoenix, at about 5000 – 6000 feet above sea level. The temperature on the morning of the 16th was 70 degrees Fahrenheit. From Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office: At approximately 7:50 this morning, the YCSO dispatch center received multiple 911 calls about a man...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Multiple sightings of a black bear have been reported in Middle Tennessee over the last week. On June 7, a bear was spotted in the Lewisburg area of Marshall County. The next day it was seen on Barker Road near Columbia. What appears to be the same bear continued northward into Williamson County, spotted in Thompson Station. It was next seen in Nashville in the Paragon Mills Road area. Most recently, it was seen a few miles south of there on Townes drive Now that the bear is being sighted in Nashville in a highly populated...

Talk about bad news bears. A Canadian man T-boned a black bear while biking through a conservation reserve — suffering a fractured scapula, cardiac contusion and bruised ribs, among other injuries. Kevin Milner, 30, of North Vancouver, British Columbia, was rounding a corner and heading downhill in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve there Tuesday when he spotted the bear — and tried to cruise around him. “The second I made that decision, he decided to run and he ran right across the road, right in front of me and I smashed into him right behind his shoulder blade,” Milner told...

On Thursday, May 12, off-duty police Sgt. Lawrence Clarke, 55 years old, had his property damaged, livestock killed, and his grandson threatened by an aggressive black bear that had become habituated to people. When the bear proved to be resistant and unafraid of people, he was forced to shoot the bear to protect lives and property.AmmoLand has obtained a copy of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection report of the investigation of the incident.On Friday, May 6, 2022, the Newtown police department received multiple nuisance wildlife concerning a black bear matching the description of a known problem bear....

In 2020, Mike Becwar was, without provocation, attacked by a cinnamon black bear in Alaska. He fought back with a folding knife and survived. This is his story. On May 29, 2020, Mike was going stir-crazy. This was during the COVID restrictions. He had been pushed to extend two weeks longer than the usual period in the remote camp at Pump Station Number 5.He had to get out of the camp to relieve stress. He chose to take a run along the road to the camp airport, around the runway, and back into camp, about a 3 1/2 mile run....

SHE TOOK THE LONG WAY HOME. A mischievous black bear was deemed so disruptive to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—stealing backpacks from hikers and nabbing food from picnic tables—that she was rehomed at a nature reserve in eastern Tennessee. But the bear decided she liked her previous home and its amenities just fine, and she made that known by trekking 1,000 miles through four states over six months, back to the national park. She was tracked near the picnic tables where she has been causing trouble in the first place. Read on to find out more about the bear's...

A black bear broke into a cabin near downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee, on Saturday and attacked a man inside. The bear broke through partially-locked French doors and went straight for the kitchen, according to CBS News. After the man found the bear in the kitchen, the bear attacked him. The man escaped the attack and called 911 from inside a locked bedroom, CBS News reported. Family members then drove him to the hospital. ... A man vacationing in Gatlinburg was injured over the weekend when a black bear entered his cabin and charged at him, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency announced...

The mere thought of scaling a mountain is terrifying enough for some, but throw a literal wild bear into the mix and the situation escalates to a whole new level of scary.. ... scrambled up enough rocky slopes and edged along enough narrow pathways to know that it requires a lot of attention. Sometimes just trying to hold a conversation without losing your balance is challenging enough, so I can't imagine what it must be like trying to fend for your own life. One person who can, and who actually succeeded in this area, is a climber who found themselves...

MORRIS — A 10-year-old boy was attacked by a bear Sunday morning, state officials say. Environmental Conservation police and state troopers responded to a report that a black bear had attacked the boy in Morris around 11 a.m. Sunday, a Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesperson said. The boy was taken by ambulance to Charlotte Hungerford Hospital for medical treatment, the spokesperson said, noting the child’s injuries appear to be non-life-threatening. "The bear was still present near the scene and was located and euthanized by EnCon police," they said.

A bear entered a home in Steamboat at 2 a.m. Saturday. Kelly Mauldin heard her dogs barking and got up to investigate and discovered the 300-400 male bear in her house. She screamed for her husband, Ken, who got up and shot and killed the bear. When I went to my bedroom door, I saw the bear about 10 feet away and shot it instantly with a 40-caliber, semi-automatic handgun. Then the bear charged me. I continued shooting at it as fast as I could. The bullet hole in the floor suggested the bear got about five to six feet...

Todd and Kim Robertson are convinced their Ford Focus was targeted by a black bear because of the aroma of donuts that permeates inside. =============================================================================================================================== Doughnut delivery drivers in Steamboat Springs might want to start looking over their shoulders. Todd and Kim Robertson awoke early Monday to discover a black bear was so determined to break into their doughnut delivery vehicle, it ripped off the car's back bumper. The Robertsons had no doubt about the bear's motives. "It always reeks of doughnuts in there," Kim Robertson said. The bear left a paw print on the car and left the scene...