Bakersfield Bear....

[Mike]

I just heard on the radio that a 56 year old woman was attacked by a bear outside Bakersfield CA.  She managed to escape and drive herself to the hospital.  The bear is being tracked by police with dogs.

Julia, how about checking in?

[Doxherding Karen]

 :crazyeyes:

Gee wiz, Uncle Mikie, Auntie Julia may be kinda cranky, but I don't think she'd be a BEAR. . .


maybe more like an aggwessive dachshund!!




Guinness

[Brekkesmom]

It does make the news every half hour.  She drove herself 3 miles from the attack to a fire station for help, and her face was pretty chewed up - 10 hours of surgery, and one of her dogs was scratched while trying to defend her.  The other dog is an Irish wolfhound and seemed unhurt.  I tend to think the one defending her is a pit bull type, but I have not heard the breed mentioned, although they showed a picture of the dog on the news.  They ran a poll asking if the bear should be euthanized, and it resulted in 24% for and 76% against.  However that was just a viewer poll.  This morning she seems to be recovering and talking to friends.  The game department is now out looking for the bear and it will be euthanized.  She is about 35 miles away, and this happened on her OWN property while she was walking the dogs.
Oh, the bear was apparently nosing around a home where a man was cooking pot roast, and since he went to several windows and the man had to scare him off, that is why they are searching out the bear - now he seems to be after humans.

[sollysmom]

Can they not relocate the bear?  To kill the bear to me is unbearable!!  I think I would try relocation first.

Darcel

[Doxherding Karen]

Once a bear associates human structures, cars, etc., with food, there is no stopping it.  At the visitor's center in Yosemite there's an endless-loop DVD that shows a bear opening a car door like it was made of Silly Putty.  He got his claws around the edge, pulled until the window shattered into a million pieces, then climbed in the back seat and ate the car!

If it has gone after a person, it has lost any fear and is considered very dangerous.  And this is likely a grizzly, rather then a black bear, which is very shy and skittish around people.

It's always sad when people and nature collide and nature loses.

Karen

[Barb]

Oh my gosh - that is about scary !!!

[Doxherding Karen]

You think it's bad here??  :meme: This AOL headline brings "Far Side" cartoons to mind:

A team of experts gathered Friday on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula to decide how to deal with marauding bears that reportedly have killed two people recently.

As many as 12,000 bears live on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.

The bears are blamed for the deaths of two guards at a geological station near a platinum mine on the peninsula in far eastern Russia.

Russian media reports cite local law enforcement officials as saying the remains of the two men had been "gnawed on."

Groups of bears have been reported in the region since the deaths, and many people have refused to work at the mine, saying they are afraid.

YIKES!!



Karen :crazyeyes:

[Brekkesmom]

BTW, it was DNA from a black bear that was recovered from the woman's face.

[JetEd73]

Black bears will kill. A few years back we had a black bear kill and eat an 8 year old girl that was on a camping trip with her parents. It's unusual but it does happen.

http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/general/news/story?id=2408721