Sierra County, California, has reported the state’s first fatal bear attack which coincided with a rise in a small town’s bear sightings.
Knewz.com has learned that the culprit, a 410 lb. black bear, broke into a residential home, killed the tenant, and hung around for days feeding off his victim’s remains.
After they were asked to do a welfare check, the local Sheriff’s Department uncovered a gruesome scene at a rented home in the mountain community of Downieville.
The residence concerned was not far from the law enforcement office and when they arrived it became apparent that something was amiss.
“Upon showing up, [they] immediately saw evidence of bear intrusion into the house,” Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher told KCRA3.
The tenant, a 71-year-old woman by the name of Patrice Miller, was found dead and as Fisher put it: “It appeared that the bear had probably been there several days and had been feeding on the remains.”
“The door was broken. There was bear scat on the porch.”
After making their initial observations, Fisher called California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
According to KCRA3, the black bear visited the premises daily after the carnage was cleared away.
Fisher became aware of the latter too. He said: “I was getting a lot of phone calls from concerned citizens that live in the area and other county employees.”
He then went back to the Department of Fish and Wildlife and asked for help. He was denied as according to the nature agency’s protocols, the request for euthanasia had to come from residents occupying a property.
“I had to relay several times that this individual was deceased and had been eaten by a bear,” Fisher recalled.
Eventually, the sheriff’s department established that the late Miller was merely a tenant. After tracking down the property’s owner Fisher was able to secure a depredation permit and the agency tasked with controlling state wildlife took on the case.
Even then Sheriff Fisher’s problems were not over. “That began a whole second drawn-out issue,” he explained.
The Fish and Wildlife Department trapped the offending animal and tried to release it again as they thought they nabbed the wrong bear.
The bear who killed Miller was a male and the agency trapper believed he had caught a female.
Fisher refused to let this happen. “I told the trapper I was seizing his trap and seizing the bear, and we placed a padlock on the bear trap,” and insisted that they check the animal again or he (Fisher) would go to the press.
“Ultimately, the biologist got here and tranquilized the bear. Once the bear was asleep, we opened up the cage, and it was a male bear,” (which was subsequently euthanized).
While this is the first of its kind for the State of California, according to The World Animal Organization, America records an average of one black bear attack per year culminating in 48 fatal bear attacks in North America between 2000–2017–and even with these stats, the chances of being attacked by a bear is one in two million.
The post First Deadly Black Bear Attack on Human in California History Documented in Sierra County appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: Dave Malyon
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