[yuta250]

Unusual for black bears to attack humans. How tragic.

[freeplancer]

Just a thought, when will the media proclaim that the bear was a racists, influenced by the rednecks in TN?

[Mamzelle]

Black bears can be quite aggressive.

[the final gentleman]

What was tragic was how the human papers reported the tragedy.

The Birmingham News for example headlined no hint that a little girl was killed. They wet their pants saying that this was a rare and unusual event and bears are just being bears and we are being unfair to bears when we humans intrude into their woodland home.

Only when continued on page two, five paragraphs down, do we the readers learn that a little six year old girl was killed and partially eaten by a 400 pond bear.

The news writer admitted that this was unfortunate, but again took pains to point out that attacks by bears are very uncommon.

Geez!

[yarddog]

I was reading one of Jeff Cooper's columns a few months ago and he mentioned that it is no longer believed that Brown and Grizzly bears are more prone to attack humans than Black bears.

[george76]

Predatory Black Bear Attack

She was a 5-foot-3, 105-pound hiker, out for a Sunday walk.

He was a 400-pound hulking young bruin officials described as "predatory," looking for a meal.

She said he came up behind her on a trail in Wawayanda State Park in Sussex County, chased her down and tackled her.

She said she did the only thing she could. She threw a hard elbow at his snout, and caught him flush, stunning the bear and giving her time to escape.

"This bear was in predatory mode," said Jack Kaskey, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman.

"This was classic predatory behavior. The bear was out to eat her. She had to fight for her life."

http://www.maineguides.org/referendum/bear_attacks13.shtml

[spanalot]

Black bears kill thousands of head of livestock in Alberta - they're like rats up there.

[Vaquero]

because there are so many more black bear than Griz/AKbrown/Kodiak, there are more black bear attacts on humans than the collective browns. But of course per capita of the 2 species, browns are more agressive toward humans than black.