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Post by brobear on Mar 29, 2022 3:09:33 GMT -5
Montana sheriff says hiker killed, grizzly bear suspected By MATTHEW BROWN March 25, 2022 apnews.com/article/montana-billings-bears-livingston-7da5ab6a9c2f0f0df726cba561466284 BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man who went missing while hiking earlier this week was killed in a suspected encounter with a grizzly bear north of Yellowstone National Park, authorities said Friday. The victim was identified as Craig Clouatre, 40, of Livingston. No details were provided on where he was found or why a grizzly bear was believed responsible for his death. The mountains in the area where Craig Clouatre died rise steeply above the Yellowstone River as it passes through the Paradise Valley. Dense forests at higher elevations are home to bears and other wildlife, although dangerous encounters with people are relatively rare.
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Post by brobear on Mar 29, 2022 3:12:26 GMT -5
Authorities not looking for bear suspected in fatal attack By MATTHEW BROWN apnews.com/article/environment-animals-montana-wildlife-billings-2d9c646b386407b000cf8648423c600d BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Authorities in Montana have not tried to track down a grizzly bear suspected in the fatal mauling of a hiker last week because it did not appear to be a predatory attack, state and local officials said Monday. Craig Clouatre, 40, was found dead Friday, two days after he failed to return from an off-trail hike in densely forested mountains north of Yellowstone National Park. He was from the small city of Livingston, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the mauling site. Tracks left at the scene and the nature of the attack suggest that a grizzly killed him, Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler said. But Bichler said there was no indication the bear sought out Clouatre, meaning it could have been simply an unlucky encounter. ”This doesn’t appear to be an attack where the bear sought out the person,” Bichler said. “It wasn’t like the bear came down into a campground and nabbed someone.” Fatal grizzly bear attacks on people are rare. Predatory attacks — such as a 2010 attack near Cooke City in which a man was killed inside his tent at a campground — are even less common. Wildlife officials are trying to confirm whether a grizzly was responsible for Clouatre’s death through testing of animal hairs found at the site, said Morgan Jacobsen with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Jacobsen said the attack appeared to have been a chance encounter and agreed with Bichler that it was not a predatory attack. Clouatre, who was married with four children and originally from Massachusetts, was experienced in the backcountry, according to his friends and family. At the time of his death, he was in a remote area with lots of timber and ravines, searching for antlers shed by elk and other big game animals, Bichler said. It was unknown if Clouatre was carrying bear spray, which are pressurized canisters of pepper-like irritant that can deter charging bears. Grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park have killed at least eight people since 2010. The region spanning portions of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho has more than 700 bears.
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Post by brobear on Mar 29, 2022 4:07:11 GMT -5
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort Grizzly Bear March 23, 2022 Bear News welovebears.club/kicking-horse-mountain-resort-grizzly-bear/ Kicking Horse Mountain Resort Grizzly Bear Kicking Horse Mountain Resort has a grizzly bear called Boo. This year, Boo turns 20 years old! On March 20th at 11:15 am, Boo emerged from his den. It took him 20 minutes to dig his way out through the snow. The resort has asked guests to be mindful and quiet around this area. According to the resort, Boo is now going from a torpor state to “walking hibernation.” For the past 20 years, guests at this ski resort watch the bear play and roam around his sanctuary. Twenty years ago the ski resort created Kicking Horse Grizzly Bear Refuge. Boo and his sibling Cari lived at the refuge. The cubs were left orphans at just five months old. A poacher killed their mother. Unfortunately, Cari did not survive his first winter. After the lab team performed a necropsy they discovered that the bear died from twisted intestines. This happened spontaneously and there was nothing the team could have done to prevent it. Boo has been living alone for the past 20 years and he likes it like that. In 2006 he did decided to leave the sanctuary and look for a mate. Don’t worry, he came back on his own. Boo the grizzly bear will be ready to greet guests this summer. The ski resort has some big plans for the bear this year and I’m hoping they will throw him a big party. As a side note, please be mindful of bears in the area or your own neighborhood. At end of March and the beginning of April, bears leave their den in search of food. Bears are groggy and hungry and need to be left alone.
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Post by brobear on Apr 16, 2022 13:22:59 GMT -5
Pandas devour ice cake to celebrate 50 years at National Zoo apnews.com/article/pandas-national-zoo-50-years-b48bb4f461de1d78f3efcb1f9bb89f73 WASHINGTON (AP) — The “cake” was made from frozen fruit juice, sweet potatoes, carrots and sugar cane and it lasted about 15 minutes once giant panda mama Mei Xiang and her cub Xiao Qi Ji got hold of it. The National Zoo’s most famous tenants had an enthusiastic breakfast Saturday in front of adoring crowds as the zoo celebrated 50 years of its iconic panda exchange agreement with the Chinese government. Xiao Qi Ji’s father Tian Tian largely sat out the morning festivities, munching bamboo in a neighboring enclosure with the sounds of his chomping clearly audible during a statement by Chinese ambassador Qin Gang. The ambassador praised the bears as “a symbol of the friendship” between the nations. Pandas are almost entirely solitary by nature, and in the wild Tian Tian would probably never even meet his child. He received a similar cake for lunch. In addition to hailing the 1972 agreement sparked by President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to China, Saturday’s celebration also highlighted the success of the global giant panda breeding program, which has helped bring the bears back from the brink of extinction. Xiao Qi Ji’s birth in August 2020 was hailed as a near miracle, due to Mei Xiang’s advanced age and the fact that zoo staff performed the artificial insemination procedure under tight restrictions shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic shut the entire zoo. At age 22, Mei Xiang was the oldest giant panda to successfully give birth in the United States. Normally they would have used a combination of frozen sperm and fresh semen extracted from Tian Tian. But in order to minimize the number of close-quarters medical procedures, zoo officials used only frozen semen. “It was definitely a long-shot pregnancy,” said Bryan Amaral, the zoo’s senior curator for mammals. In honor of that long shot, the now 20-month-old cub was given a name that translates as “little miracle.” His birth in mid-pandemic sparked a fresh wave of panda-mania, with viewership on the zoo’s panda-cam livestream spiking by 1,200 percent. “I know how passionate people are about pandas,” Amaral said. “I’m not surprised by that passion at all.” Sure enough, crowds started streaming straight for the panda section at 8 a.m. when the zoo opened. Sisters Lorelai and Everley Greenwell, age 6 and 5, ran toward the enclosure chanting “Pandas! Pandas!” They watched the cub tumble around, try to wrestle his mom and tear the zero off the giant 50 emblazoned on the ice cake. “They knew this was coming,” said their mother Kayleigh Greenwell of Mount Ranier, Maryland, said of her girls. “We’ve been talking about it all week.” The zoo’s original 1972 panda pair, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were star attractions at the zoo for decades, but panda pregnancies are notoriously tricky and none of their cubs survived. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian arrived in 2000, and the pair has successfully birthed three other cubs: Tai Shan, Bao Bao and Bei Bei — also by artificial insemination. All were transported to China at age 4, under terms of the zoo’s agreement with the Chinese government. Similar agreements with zoos around the world have helped revitalize the giant panda population. Down to just over 1000 bears in the 1980s, the species has since been removed from the lists of animals in danger of extinction.
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Post by brobear on Apr 16, 2022 13:24:05 GMT -5
Mama Mei Xiang and her cub Xiao Qi Ji
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Post by brobear on Apr 21, 2022 2:19:03 GMT -5
2 men banned from hunting after Yellowstone grizzly poached apnews.com/article/idaho-bears-de0334efb29c8e9179c63b487b75eafa 4 / 20 / 2022 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Two Idaho men have been sentenced to jail time and banned from hunting for years after pleading guilty to poaching a grizzly bear near Yellowstone National Park. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game said in a press release that Rex Baum, 79, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with the female grizzly’s death last year. He was ordered to serve 3 days in jail and was banned from hunting for a decade. Baum’s son, Jared Baum of Ashton, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and banned from hunting for life after pleading guilty to a felony in connection with the incident. Fish and Game officers discovered the grizzly’s carcass on April 9, 2021 after the bear’s radio tracking collar signaled it had died, the Idaho Statesman reported. X-rays of the bear showed she had been shot more than a dozen times. Conservation officers visited the bear’s den, discovering a dead male cub. The agency contacted the two men after sending a warrant to Google for records of electronic devices that had been in the area around the time of the grizzly’s death. Idaho grizzlies are federally protected. Last month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little joined Montana and Wyoming governors in petitioning for the bears to be removed from Endangered Species Act protections.
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Post by brobear on Apr 22, 2022 18:22:13 GMT -5
Help Asheville Bears calls on Amazon to stop selling accessories used for bear poaching wlos.com/news/local/help-asheville-bears-amazon-poaching-accessories-jody-williams-herschel-morgan ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A local bear advocacy group is calling on Amazon to make a move that will help save animals from illegal trapping. Help Asheville Bears posted a video to its Facebook page and within days, it's racked up over thousands of views. The founder of the group, Jody Williams, is calling on Amazon to remove its attractants and accessories used for bear poaching. “There’s animals all around the world that have been affected by these traps, with Amazon being the largest supplier for over a decade,” said Williams. PLAN TO ALLOW BEAR HUNTING IN 3 WNC SANCTUARIES MET WITH RESISTANCE He says he contacted the company about a year and a half ago, and a company representative told him Amazon was looking into the matter. Williams says he has received no response to his recent inquiries, then noticed that Amazon begun taking steps to remove bear traps from its website, but not everything used for illegal trapping. “They’ve silently removed their bear traps, steel-jaw traps and all their snares off there but there’s still snare accessories and attractants which need to be removed as well because these traps - they last for decades,” said Williams. The Help Asheville Bears video also features Retired Air Force Colonel, Herschel Morgan, who was a prisoner of war and is now a member of Help Asheville Bears. He says he would like to see a program that provides more education about how to coexist with bears. “We’ve built houses, built roads, we’ve moved them out of their own natural habitat, and we need to educate people - to learn how to get along with the bears,” said Morgan. “People see them in the housing areas because people leave their food out and the bears are hungry,” said Morgan. “I know what it is to be hungry. Hungry is when you think about food 24 hours a day." 'NO REASON WE CAN'T COEXIST' NC WILDLIFE BIOLOGISTS URGE COMMUNITIES TO BECOME 'BEARWISE' Help Asheville Bears is also calling on the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to approve the group to create a bear rehab and sanctuary in the Asheville area. Williams says the group must have approval from the state before they can move forward with the project. News 13 reached out to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission about the request of Help Asheville Bears and the process of creating an animal sanctuary. We received this statement from the agency: "The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission did receive a letter from Help Asheville Bears (HAB) in Nov. 2020 stating they wanted to begin the process to obtain a permit to operate a facility for injured bears. Our agency responded in Dec. 2020 with information regarding the laws and regulations pertaining to the request. In addition, we provided details of how HAB would need to proceed, stating their organization must 'develop and submit a detailed plan of your proposed habitats including all design specifications for review.' If approved, the organization would then need to apply for a Captivity License for Holding (15A NCAC 10H .1400). To date, we have not received a detailed plan of their proposed habitat or designs specifications." Williams says he also wants to see Amazon contribute to animal sanctuaries and rehab facilities where the traps have been sold. “They do need to make recompense," Williams said. "They need to do that by supporting the very bear rehabs and animal rehabs and sanctuaries that are saving these animals that are victims of traps."
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Post by brobear on Apr 22, 2022 18:23:32 GMT -5
wlos.com/news/local/help-asheville-bears-amazon-poaching-accessories-jody-williams-herschel-morgan 7 year 10 month POW orders illegal bear traps from Amazon and exposes local store selling and propagating the trapping of bears!! Colonel Hershel Scott Morgan (Ret.) is the 4th longest held Air Force POW in American history. At one point he was held in iron clad shackles for 50 days and nights straight. Colonel Morgan ordered these illegal traps from Amazon to historically hold. ( see video on site )
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Post by brobear on May 7, 2022 1:38:42 GMT -5
Search on for poacher who killed bear, dumped it off bridge apnews.com/article/maine-wildlife-bears-749b5e6fc1e511233a7b40e642d2e4aa LAGRANGE, Maine (AP) — Authorities in Maine say someone illegally killed a bear and dumped it off a bridge, and they’re working with a nonprofit group to offer a reward to help find out who did it. The Maine Warden Service received a complaint about the dead black bear in Lagrange on April 26. Their investigation found that the bear had been shot and dumped off the bridge. Operation Game Thief, a private nonprofit that works with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to stop poaching, is offering a $4,000 reward in the case. The warden service said Friday that the group wants information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for killing the bear. Maine is home to a bear hunt, but it is regulated by the state and takes place only in the late summer and fall. The black bear is also a symbol of the rural parts of the state and serves as the mascot of the University of Maine sports teams.
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Post by brobear on May 8, 2022 5:36:35 GMT -5
Large black bear eludes capture in western Washington apnews.com/article/technology-washington-wildlife-bears-00afb835c4cbe3c525262fb364302843 ISSAQUAH, Wash. (AP) — Wildlife officials in Washington trying to capture a 300-pound (135-kilogram) black bear for two years say his GPS collar that was supposed to fall off hasn’t and could be too tight. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also tells The Seattle Times in a story on Friday that the GPS collar stopped working. Officials also want to capture the bear because they said he’s too comfortable around homes in Issaquah and gets into garbage. “This can be unfortunate as it’s not the bear’s fault that garbage or bird feeders were left out and served as attractants,” said department spokesman Chase Gunnell The agency has received more than 50 tips from the public in recent weeks but so far hasn’t captured the bruin. Officials have put out culvert traps and captured a different bear. Officials said they haven’t decided what to do with the bear if they capture him, but will check if there’s any injury or infection from the collar. The collar has a cotton spacer that’s supposed to wear away and cause the collar to fall off. It’s now known why the GPS stopped working, Gunnell said. *Notice that this black bear is described as a "large" bear. I've mentioned often, every bear is reported as being a "large" bear. So, when you read that a tiger has killed a "large" bear, remember this.
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Post by brobear on May 11, 2022 14:31:21 GMT -5
US Army soldier dies after bear attack in Alaska apnews.com/article/environment-alaska-anchorage-bears-us-army-c264e6cd5cfaa30031da99588daa8d37 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. Army soldier died of injuries sustained in a bear attack Tuesday in Alaska. The soldier was part of a small group in a training area west of the Anchorage Regional Landfill when the bear attacked. The name of the soldier was being withheld pending next-of-kin notification. The 673d Security Forces Squadron initially responded to the incident. Alaska Wildlife Troopers were searching for the bear in the area, which is closed to the public for all recreation activity. No other information was immediately available.
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Post by brobear on May 25, 2022 16:08:45 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on May 25, 2022 16:09:57 GMT -5
Bear sought after attack on NJ woman heading to check mail May 14, 2022 LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — Authorities say a woman was taken to a hospital after she was attacked by a black bear as she walked down a New Jersey road to check her mail.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said the attack happened at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday on a farm lane in Lafayette Township. Officials said the 34-year-old woman saw two to three bears and was “involved in a physical encounter with one of them.”
A neighbor used a car horn to scare the animals off. The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries to her arm and buttock and was later released.
State officials said the bear involved was reported to be one or two years old and 150 to 200 pounds.
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Post by brobear on May 25, 2022 16:12:18 GMT -5
Wisconsin couple kills bear that attacked them in their home May 22, 2022 MEDFORD, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin couple say they killed a bear that attacked them inside their home after they spotted it eating from their bird feeder.
The Taylor County Sheriff’s office said the attack happened around 11 p.m. Friday at a home near Medford in north-central Wisconsin. The couple told authorities that the bear charged through a window after they yelled at it to go away.
Both the husband and wife were injured before they were able to stab the bear with a kitchen knife. Eventually, the man was able to grab a firearm and kill the animal.
The man and woman were treated at a hospital for several bites and other injuries before being released. The couple’s children were asleep in their bedrooms at the time and were not injured.
The sheriff’s office said the bear was an adult female, and one cub was seen running off as the bear ran toward the home. State wildlife officials took the bear for testing. Authorities have not specified what kind of bear it was.
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Post by brobear on May 25, 2022 16:13:50 GMT -5
Black bear that evaded capture for years caught, killed an hour ago apnews.com/article/politics-washington-seattle-bears-wildlife-ff5edf8d6bdec84d92410d3f63ef5b5f SEATTLE (AP) — A large black bear that evaded capture in western Washington for more than two years was trapped and killed near Issaquah last week. The Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife said the 5-year-old bear was captured in the Squak Mountain area, where he had been seen in garbage containers, bird feeders and fruit trees dozens of times over nearly three years, The Seattle Times reported. The capture had taken on greater urgency because he was frequently seen in residential areas and was wearing a collar that had grown too tight. WDFW made the decision to “lethally remove” the bear because he was so overweight at 352 pounds — the normal weight for a similar-aged bear is about 200 pounds – and because of his habit of getting into human-provided food sources. “It was determined this behavior would continue if the bear was relocated,” the department said Tuesday in a news release.
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Post by brobear on Jun 2, 2022 23:30:01 GMT -5
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Post by brobear on Jun 4, 2022 1:33:30 GMT -5
Groups file new lawsuit to stop Idaho gold mine drilling domainofthebears.proboards.com/thread/1096/bears-news?page=38 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service violated environmental laws in approving exploratory drilling by a Canadian company hoping to build a gold mine in Idaho west of Yellowstone National Park, two environmental groups said. The Idaho Conservation League and Greater Yellowstone Coalition filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week to stop Excellon Idaho Gold’s Kilgore Gold Exploration Project in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in Clark County. The groups site potential harm to grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, bighorn sheep, whitebark pine trees, Columbia spotted frogs and Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Grizzly bears in the area are protected under the Endangered Species Act, and whitebark pine, a grizzly bear food source, has been proposed for listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Excellon Idaho Gold is a subsidiary of Toronto, Ontario-based Excellon Resources Inc. It acquired the project from British Columbia-based Otis Gold Corporation in 2020. “The Kilgore Project site is also home to individuals and habitat for numerous special-status and at-risk terrestrial species of wildlife and plants, including grizzly bear, wolverine, lynx, elk, whitebark pine, and others found in the Centennial Mountains,” the lawsuit states. The groups also said grizzly bears travel through the area resulting in important genetic diversity for the population. “The Centennial Mountains are one of the key corridors for (Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem) grizzly to connect with grizzlies from other populations in the Northern Rockies,” the lawsuit states.
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Post by brobear on Jun 5, 2022 2:52:23 GMT -5
Montana officials euthanize grizzly bear, release another apnews.com/article/montana-wildlife-bears-9eb96ad2c24dda7f3f1bc59229e39818 BONNER, Mont. (AP) — Montana wildlife officials captured two young female sibling grizzly bears, releasing one back into the wild and euthanizing the other due to an infection stemming from losing a front left paw. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said Friday it captured the 2-year-old females on May 29 after they remained close to homes in the Blackfoot Valley about 10 miles from the town of Bonner in western Montana. The agency said the healthy sibling weighed about 130 pounds and the other about 90 pounds. The healthy grizzly was fitted with a radio collar and released into an undisclosed location. It’s not clear how the injured grizzly lost its paw, but a bicyclist found a grizzly bear paw on April 11 on a road where, last fall, a sow grizzly and three yearling cubs had been seen. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Bear Manager Jamie Jonkel told The Missoulian that the agency is waiting on DNA results to see if the captured bears were part of the family group that included a male sibling. The mother grizzly had been known to raid sheds and garages north of Missoula. There have been no reports on the mother or male sibling this spring.
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Post by brobear on Jun 7, 2022 4:56:52 GMT -5
300-pound bear struck and killed on California highway apnews.com/article/california-bears-animals-506cf6391f1a99850dea569957fdceb6 IRWINDALE, Calif. (AP) — A 300-pound (135-kilogram) bear was struck and killed Monday morning on a Southern California highway, authorities said. The animal was hit by a Toyota SUV around 4:15 a.m. on a westbound connector road to Interstate 210 in Irwindale, east of Los Angeles, according to the California Highway Patrol. The collision shattered the SUV’s windshield, Fox 11 TV reported. The bear was eventually removed from the freeway on a flat-bed truck, highway patrol Officer Ramon Kendricks told the Los Angeles Times. Kendricks said he didn’t know whether anyone in the vehicle was injured in the crash.
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Post by brobear on Jun 15, 2022 15:10:26 GMT -5
Bear euthanized after injuring mother, 3-year-old in Smokies apnews.com/article/travel-parks-national-bears-5930401a01a068ac3df7a60bf23e16ae GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials say a bear has been euthanized after ripping into a family’s tent and injuring a mother and her 3-year-old daughter. Park officials say the incident happened Sunday at Elkmont Campground. The 350-pound bear was euthanized Monday after likely being attracted to campsite food smells and having previous access to non-natural foods. Officials say the black bear tore through the sleeping family’s tent at 5:20 a.m. and scratched the mother and daughter, causing superficial head lacerations. The father scared off the bear after several attempts. Officials investigated and trapped the bear, which showed extreme food-conditioned behavior and didn’t fear humans. Officials say it’s difficult to deter learned behavior of bears who access human food and it can present unacceptable risk to humans. Food storage regulations exist where bears may be present, and in the rare occurrence of an attack, officials suggest fighting back with any object available.
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