Tom Rankin
Well-known member
"A man was bitten as he was trying to take a picture of a black bear in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, but the injury was minor and did not require medical attention."
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I agree. I'm also unhappy with their use of the word "euthanized" as a euphemism for "killed." If the bear was sick or injured, and the intent of the killing was to relieve its suffering, that's euthanasia. This was not euthanasia.That park policy sucks. How do they know which bear bit the person? ( not that I agree any bear should be euthanized automatically due to one incident with a human who put themselves at risk in the bear's home )
There are other possible reasons, too:I suspect that the reason the bear was euthanized was because it bit a human. They have no choice. Being a mammal, bears can have rabies although this is rare.
They need to check the brain to see is it is afflicted so they can treat the photographer if they get a positive result. For obvious reasons this needs to be done in a timely way.
60 lb female??? a cub?? Or is that 600lb?
that's a big difference, could be "Awwww, cute" to "Awww, cr*p"!
Jay
... I saw three dead deer on the side of the road on my short commute through the suburbes. We can't shoot deer in the burbs.
A sign of deer overpopulation ... I have read that there are many times the number of whitetailed deer in their range today than when the Pilgrims landed in MA, 1620.
G.
"it has to be 60 lb. Female black bears don't grow to 600 lb. A fully mature female may reach 300 but that's the upper limit."
Not sure if this is correct. A couple of decades ago there was a habituated bear that concerned everyone. He was huge, I believe I read he was over 600lbs. Called 'Cliff', he would brazen his way into campsites around Marcy Dam, Avalance, Flowed Lands and take food. Often chasing campers out of leantos to get food or food prepartions.
One spring Cliff was spotted with a pair of her cubs and 'he' was discovered to be a 'she'. Cliff eventually had to be killed as everyone believed it was a matter of time until a serious injury or death occurred.
I'm sure part of Cliff's size was the hiker's diet she consumed as part of her daily rounds over a long period of time.
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