Bear Shooting Investigation

Updated: Monday, June 2 2014, 07:13 PM EDT 

A Maggie Valley homeowner says he shot and killed a mother bear when it charged at him early Monday morning. He tells News 13 the bear was looking for food from his bird feeders in the back of his home, in the Sheepback Mountain community. 

The homeowner, who asked News 13 not to be identified, says when he checked on noise on the porch, the bear charged him, and he shot to protect himself. He says he didn't know the bear had three cubs nearby. "I heard her come out of the creek, and she started running towards me, most unfortunate this happened. But it could have been my wife who would not have been able to defend herself," he says. 

Sergeant Andrew Helton with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission says the mother bear was protecting her cubs. He says it appears the homeowner acted out of self-protection. "This case will still be open for investigation. We're going to pursue, talk to the D.A. about everything that happened here. And go from there," says Helton. Wildlife officials say if a bear approaches a bird feeder, don't confront it.

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Bear that bit Missouri students has no rabies, is spared

(Reuters) - A two-month-old bear cub that bit and scratched at least 18 students at a Missouri college poses no rabies threat and won't be killed, school officials said on Friday.

The college earlier said that the cub, named Boo Boo, would have to be euthanized in order to test it for the disease.

The cub was brought to the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday along with some other animals from a petting zoo to help students relax before final exams, the university said in a statement.

Health officials previously said they couldn't rule out the possibility the cub had rabies, the university said.

If it tested positive, students would have been advised to get vaccinated for rabies, a life-threatening viral disease.

Late on Friday afternoon, the university issued a news release stating that local, state and federal health officials determined that Boo Boo posed no rabies threat and that students will need no treatments.

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Scottish tourists 'surprised to find bear on patio'

25 January 2014 Last updated at 04:21 GMT

A Scottish couple on holiday in California have had a close encounter with a bear.

The meeting happened as Bob and Rene McKeown came out of a house in Pasadena where they were staying and headed to their car.

Alastair Leithead reports.

Video

Longwood woman chased by bear while walking dog

LONGWOOD, Fla. -

A Longwood woman says she was chased by a bear Tuesday night while walking her dog on Ledbury Drive.

Stefani McCoy said she noticed the bear in her neighbor's yard around 8:15 p.m., then spotted two cubs near a tree.

McCoy said she and her dog, Bella, immediately turned around and started running away from the bears, but the female bear charged after her.

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VIDEO: A Bear Walks Into A Bar

Feel free to complete the joke in the comments thread (and we bet you can do better than this guy).

Yes, a black bear walked into a bar in Estes Park, Colo., last week, as Denver's CBS4 News reports. A man who saw the bear go inside says he tried to warn the patrons of Lonigan's Saloon Bar and Grill that they had a 350-pound-or-so intruder. None of the customers paid attention. Fortunately, according to the Estes Park Trail Gazette, Daniel Lyell adds that, "I called for the bear when he was just about to enter the middle bar area. He hesitated and then listened to me the second time. He turned around and went out the door behind me."

Surveillance video caught the beer ... er, bear ... inside the bar.

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Bear with head stuck in jar is rescued in Pa.

JAMISON CITY, Pa. (AP) — Four central Pennsylvania residents said they used only a rope and a flashlight during a wild chase to rescue a young bear whose head had been stuck in a plastic jar for at least 11 days.

The frightened but powerful bruin fell into a swimming pool at least twice during the ordeal, according to a report Saturday in the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg (http://bit.ly/166z97k ). But the group eventually yanked off the jar and set the animal free.

"I thought, 'No one is going to believe us,'" said Morgan Laskowski, 22, the bartender at the Jamison City Hotel and a member of the impromptu bear-wrangling team.

Area residents first spotted the 100-pound bruin with its head in a red jar on June 3, but it eluded game wardens. The animal was attracted to the container because it appeared to have once contained cooking oil.

"He put his head in, and had a problem," said Mike Jurbala, 68, another rescuer. "He'd have died in a couple more days."

Jurbala saw the bear Thursday night as he was leaving the bar at the Jamison City Hotel. He calledJeff Hubler, a local employee of the state Game Commission who had been among those trying to capture it for days with a lasso.

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‘Deranged’ bear attacks bird-watching biologist

By Jenny Neyman

Special to the Tribune

The details of a bear attack Sunday afternoon on the Kasilof beach were about as ripe for tragedy as they come. The incident ended with officers shooting what was described as an older sow just after 5 p.m.

A bird-watching family with three of their kids, one just a baby in a backpack, unarmed and out for a walk along the shore encountered an adult sow brown bear, seemingly “deranged,” acting erratically and aggressively. It did not respond to attempts to chase it away.

Now that it's spring, bears are on the prowl. An incident at Kasilof marks the first bear attack of the season.

The family was caught in the open sand, with no cover or protection, no chance of making it back to their vehicle, no one around to help and nothing with which to defend themselves but a bird-spotting scope and tripod.

And yet, the encounter ended about as well as it possibly could, the only casualties being the tripod, one of the baby’s mittens and the bear, which was shot and killed by Alaska State Troopers.

“After it was all done, my overwhelming sentiment that I was left with was, I just felt grateful. It could have ended so many different ways and, really, no one was hurt. It never laid a paw on any of my family and I didn’t get torn up, so I just felt really grateful,” said Toby Burke, of Kenai.

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Canadian couple adopt pool and pub-loving grizzly bear Billy

The friendly 18-month-old bear was adopted by animal handler Mark Dumas and his wife Dawn as a cub last year and has been enjoying their company ever since.

Billy regularly accompanies the duo to their favourite watering hole near their home in Vancouver, Canada, where he can easily get his paws up onto the bar.

After taking in a game of pool, the 250lbs (18st) brown giant joins his family relaxing in the living room with a spot of TV.

At home Billy splashes in the swimming pool with his adopted 'mum' where the duo play with a giant inflatable ball or alternatively indulge in a spot of play-fighting. 

'Billy is very intelligent and has a really good spirit. He is very good natured and he learns fast,' explained Mr Dumas, who trains animals of all shapes and sizes for work in movies and TV.

'His favourite food is jam and he loves tucking into a jar when Dawn and I have a picnic,' he added. 

'He's been with us since he was a cub. I wanted to take him to the beach because bears have a natural affinity with water, and I knew he'd enjoy it.

'He loved splashing around in the waves, and now he loves our pool.'

Billy was one of three cubs born at a private zoo in Ontario, Canada, before moving in with the Dumas clan where he lives in a large enclosure complete with his own pool.

When fully grown Billy could weigh more than three times his current weight - reaching 800lbs

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/910260-canadian-couple-adopt-pool-and-pub-loving-grizzly-bear-billy#ixzz25ZNLhfTN

Norwegian driver hits bear after trying to avoid elk

A Norwegian driver who tried to avoid crashing into an elk hit a bear instead, a wildlife official said.

The accident took place on Wednesday night on a rural road 225km (140 miles) north of Oslo, in Hedmark county.

While the driver escaped uninjured, a search party was tracking the bear after finding traces of blood, local wildlife official Svein Erik Bjorke told the Reuters news agency.

Norway is home to around 100,000 elk and 150 brown bears.

The driver spotted the elk - known in north America as a moose - around midnight near Hanestad village and tried to steer around the animal, when a bear suddenly ran in front of his car.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19288749

Alaska bear mauling victim pleads for help, ambulance in recorded 911 calls

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 30-year-old Alaska man mauled by a bear pleads for help in a recorded 911 call, telling the dispatcher he’s up a tree and can hear the animal huffing below him.

In the recording released by Alaska State Troopers, Ben Radakovich tells the dispatcher to send an ambulance, saying he is “bleeding bad.” At one point the two are disconnected and Radakovich calls back.

Radakovich climbed 30 feet up the tree after he was mauled Sunday morning by a female brown bear with a cub on the Penguin Creek Trail south of Anchorage.

“The damn thing was batting at me,” Radakovich tells the dispatcher.

It took rescuers almost two hours to reach him. Troopers say a helicopter was unable to land nearby, so rescuers used an all-terrain vehicle to carry Radakovich on a wheeled stretcher to transport him to the chopper one and a half miles away.

He was flown to an Anchorage hospital, and was released Monday morning, according to Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen.

Radakovich, who lives in the Anchorage suburb of Eagle River north of town, did not respond to phone messages left at a number listed under his name. He told ABC’s Good Morning America: “I’m just grateful that I got through it and that I’m here to enjoy another day basically.”

Several bear and moose attacks in recent weeks have raised concerns in the area; no one has died, but some of the animals have been killed.

Many calls are from people reporting bears raiding outdoor trash cans or crossing streets. Others are from people charged by moose with young offspring born in the spring calving season.

Continued:http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Alaska+bear+mauling+victim+pleads+help+ambulance+recorded+calls/6777941/story.html