|
Posted on 06/12/2003 9:14:03 PM PDT by Coleus
Edited on 07/06/2004 6:38:59 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A 200-pound black bear crashed through the screen door of a Vernon home yesterday, ransacking the kitchen and trapping a woman and her two young children in a bedroom until police arrived and rescued them.
The female bruin was shot and killed as it tried to get out of the house through an open window.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Sounds like the bear was retreating and the officer shot him in the back. Not fair :-)
|
|
Friday, June 13, 2003 |
State wildlife officials on Thursday sent a message to anyone thinking about shooting black bears that pose a nuisance.
Don't.
The state Division of Fish and Wildlife slapped Patrick Flynn of West Milford with a summons for shooting a bear, which had tried to come in through the kitchen door as his wife cooked dinner on June 6. In the initial commotion, the bear retreated to the yard, and Flynn grabbed his shotgun and fired, badly wounding the animal.
State wildlife officers found the bear in the woods the next day and killed it.
Flynn notified the police about the incident and said he shot the bear as a last resort to defend his wife, his 2-year-old daughter, and himself. But based on an autopsy that found the bear had been shot from behind, the state charged Flynn with injuring a bear, a civil offense. If convicted in Municipal Court, he faces a fine of up to $300.
State law allows people to shoot black bears, a protected species, if they pose an "imminent threat" - usually defined by the state as acting aggressively within 10 feet of a human. An issue in this case is whether the bear posed a threat or just a nuisance.
Although the fine is relatively small, the stakes are high for man and beast. There have been several dangerous encounters this spring - and the state is concerned that people are beginning to take matters into their own hands.
Bradley Campbell, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, issued a statement on Thursday to remind residents that bears are a protected species - at least for now.
"Communities need to understand that shooting a bear is unlawful," Campbell said. "While there will be circumstances in which an immediate threat to safety would excuse a killing, that justification is not presented by the facts in this case."
A necropsy of the bear by the Division of Fish and Wildlife showed that the bear was shot in the rear at a range of about 15 yards, suggesting that the animal was retreating from the house, the DEP said.
Flynn would not comment. His wife, however, said the bear was only about 15 feet from the house when her husband fired at it - and that the bear looked as if it was about to make another charge for the door.
"He had turned his head back around and looked like he was headed back toward my husband," said Kristine Flynn. The house is on Kushaqua Trail North in the hills just above Greenwood Lake, a resort area where many of the summer log cabins have been converted to year-round use. Bears come into the Flynns' yard two or three times a day, she said.
She said that shortly before noon on Thursday, she was minding their daughter Samantha when a Fish and Wildlife officer knocked on the door. Besides handing her the summons, the officer set up a barrel bear trap in her driveway.
Exasperated, she took the summons and called her husband at work.
"What we did was a judgment call on our part," she said. "I guess the next time it happens, we're supposed to wait for the bear to break the door down."
That's what had happened in the Highland Lakes section of Vernon on Wednesday. A 200-pound black bear broke through a screen door and began ransacking a family's kitchen looking for food. Lisa Spirko grabbed her two children, ages 2 and 7, and ran for a bedroom, where she barricaded the door and called the police.
Vernon police arrived and helped the family climb out a window. Police and a Division of Fish and Wildlife biologist then shot the bear dead after he climbed out a dining room window.
Spirko said the police did the right thing.
"We were trapped in the bedroom and there was no telling what that bear would do," she said. "People say bears aren't supposed to come into your house, but this one did. I think the police were justified in doing what they did."
Spirko said she doesn't have any guns in her house, but she supported the action that Flynn had taken.
"I totally understand what he did," she said. "He was protecting his family."
The DEP says Spirko handled the her bear encounter the right way.
"The mother did the right thing," said Jack Kaskey, spokesman for the DEP. "She called the police."
The state estimates as many as 3,200 black bears live in New Jersey. It has proposed a one-week hunt in December to thin the population. Opponents of the hunt say there's no need to slaughter bears if people learned to live among them and keep garbage out of reach of scavenging bears.
Although recent events suggest that bears are becoming more aggressive, state records show a drop in the number of dangerous encounters from a year ago.
As of June 3, there had been 48 "Category 1" incidents - encounters in which bears either came within 10 feet of a human, caused property damage, or posed a threat to pets or livestock. Last year at this time, there had been 94 Category 1 incidents.
The state attributes the decline to the harsh winter, which kept bears in their dens longer than usual.
____________________________________________________________________
Didn't it occur to the state officials that if a bear is brazen enough to enter once he would do it again, and if he were very hungry could become vicious.
This sounds like it's going to be one of those "stop sign in front of the school" stories where the civic officials blow off the screaming parents until -- surprise, surprise -- a kid gets run over and killed. Then they act like it's a big emergency to fix the problem.
It sounds like you're going to have to wait until some kid gets turned into hamburger.
You gotta be kidding me.
But it's ok to kill us, that's what they call choice
Bears may be 'cute'. Black bears(as in those in Michigan and Jersey) are about about 250-400 pounds, about 5-7 feet tall on hind legs, have sharp teeth and claws, can outrun and outstrength almost all animals in the US, including people. I wonder how many of these cityfolk have ever seen a bear in person outside of the zoo. They aren't Yogi or the Bearenstein Bears.
If I'm cornered by a bear going in my cottage up north(There are no bears in southern Michigan - yet), I'd shoot it. I'd be scared to death to do anything besides shoot it, much like this family was scared. Although up north, the cops will probably just take a report and then ask for bear meat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
You'd like to believe that one of the advantages of modern, technological society is relative freedom from the threat of predatory beasts. Have we come so far in 5,000 years only to have lions and tigers and bears wandering into our houses? This is nuts.