Posted on 07/15/2009 5:51:29 AM PDT by HIDEK6
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The police department says officers had no choice but to shoot and kill a black bear wandering around the northwest part of the city Monday night. Officers said the bear became aggressive as it ate garbage and bird seed from homes along Kramer Court.
Residents reported seeing the bear going through their trash cans around 9 p.m.
Rudy Kane, who lives on Kramer Court, had just returned home from a camping trip when he noticed the bear in his yard. He said he a bear at two different times Monday.
"Well I was in this house and I walked up to the kitchen window and there was this black bear," he said. "He just took his big ol' paw and just pulled that squirrel container right on down."
"Animal control said to not bother them. Let them go eat what they want and get out of there," Kane said. He did, but later that night, after neighbors called police about the bear in their garbage, the Kanes and police again found one of the bears back at the bird feeders.
"The bear was not retreating," said Police Chief Scott Cunningham. "(It was) standing its ground and (it) turned and made face-to-face contact with the officer and was making appropriate animal noises."
"And one of the officers shot him," recalled Kane. "He didn't hit a vital spot, and the bear climbed a tree." Kane said the bear then fell out of the tree.
"(It) got a little aggressive to the officers, ran up in the woods. They got up with him and shot him again," said Kane.
The department is not equipped with tranquilizer guns and darts. Forsyth County Animal Control does have tranquilizer guns, but animal control officers said they were not made aware of the incident until after the bear was shot. And even if they had come out, the Animal Control Director Tim Jennings said -- due to a matter of jurisdiction -- his officers aren't allowed to use tranquilizers unless granted permission by a state wildlife officer. If animal control were to tranquilize an animal, they have nowhere to keep it and no way to transport it.
"Unfortunately, the city doesn't have a lot of resources to be able to deal with animals," said Cunningham. "If we had let it stay in the woods, at some point, it is going to come back out. We might not be there before it gets hold of a kid, an animal, an adult or something. Then, we would have missed that opportunity from keeping someone from being hurt."
Since Friday, nearly a dozen bear sightings have been reported between Country Club and Robinhood roads. Police believe there may be two more bears still wandering in the northwest part of Winston-Salem, because several people had reported seeing three bears at one time.
The North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission says bear sightings are not uncommon this time of year. In fact, during the spring and summer mating season, young male bears tend to wander, and anything from garbage to bird seed will attract them.
The bear population in North Carolina has nearly tripled since 1971, from 4,000 bears then to an estimated 11,000 bears in 2004.
"We still feel a little concerned about it, because there is another bear out here somewhere," said Kane.
Interesting? Not at all....
Easy? Heck yes. If wildlife threatens us, it should immediately be eliminated.
One way or another...
Last I heard, humans are significantly more important than "wildlife".
LOL...uhhh...okaaay!
Prior posts: Should we protect wildlife even when it threatens us?
Ok, where are the bite and scratch marks. The last I heard most cops spoke dumb, but not to much bear.
***
Unless you feel it would have been safe to walk around in one’s own yard with the bear nearby, and to let your children play while the bear was around, there WAS a threat. You don’t have to have been wounded by the bear for there to be a threat. I live in Lewisville, just west of Winston-Salem. Winston is no place for a bear to be hanging around. It is very urban. Chief Cunningham was right to take out the bear. (Full disclosure: Scott is a friend of mine, and comes across as a thoughtful guy, not a shoot from the hip type.)
And I live very close to bears and never give them a thought, if you do not corner them they are no threat. Jump and yell and a black bear will run and climb the nearest big tree and/or just run off.
I live very close to the Parkway, and I think I've seen one bear in my entire life. Though we are in the mountains, bear sitings are very rare. Had it been a deer, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. I think there are more deer around here than people. lol
“...was making appropriate animal noises”
What are appropriate animal noises? Similar to Democrats bloviating?
I am 48 yo and have never known of bears in this area ever. However last year or the year before there was one found up a tree on Main street here. The trees there aren’t large (20’ maybe?) the rangers got it down by tranquilizing it but I have no idea what they did with it. We keep hearing of people spotting them now so apparently we ave bears again here in SE Ohio?
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