Bear Attack in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (2000 Story)

Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials report that the victim of the black bear attack on Sunday afternoon was Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, from Cosby, TN. Bradley was an elementary school teacher at Jones Cove Elementary. Her companion is her former husband, Ralph Hill, 52, also a resident of Cosby. The attack occurred between 2 p.m.-3 p.m. in the backcountry at the intersection of Little River and Goshen Prong Trails about 2.5 miles from the Little River trailhead where the couple parked their car. The couple entered the Park around noon. Hill left Bradley to fish on an island on the Little River. A short while later he went to look for Bradley and located her day pack. He discovered her body about 40-50 yards off trail. He noticed two bears, an adult female weighing 112 pounds and a yearling female weighing about 40 pounds, guarding the body. He tried to run off the bears, but the adult female showed aggressive behavior towards Hill. He went to seek additional assistance and a hiker ran to get help at the Elkmont campground, arriving at 5 p.m.

A Park Ranger was immediately dispatched to the scene and arrived at 6:05 p.m. Fifteen minutes later two other Park Rangers arrived. The Park Rangers observed the bears still near the body and shot the bears with their service weapons. A total of 17 Park personnel responded to the incident. The bears were sent to the University of Tennessee of Veterinary Medicine Department for a necropsy. The woman's body has been transported to East Tennessee State University for an autopsy. Park officials are almost 100 percent certain that the two bears were involved in the attack but the necropsy will confirm this fact. It appears that this was an unprovoked attack. According to the victim's family Bradley was an experienced day hiker who was familiar with the Park. Bradley's day pack which contained food was not disturbed. The adult female bear had been tagged in 1998 by University of Tennessee wildlife biologists for research purposes but never had shown any aggressive tendencies towards people before. By all indications this bear was truly a wild bear. But most past human/bear conflicts in the Smokies have been as a result of bear's either being fed human food and becoming habituated to human food. In the past decade, the Park has become increasingly proactive in both reducing available garbage in front country areas and providing effective food storage alternatives in the backcountry. Managers have also stepped up education programs to teach people about responsible food storage and to avoid conflicts with bears.

Acting Superintendent Philip A. Francis, Jr., said that " We want to stress that there is no indication whatsoever that Bradley did anything to provoke this attack. The fact remains that bears in the Smokies are wild and unpredictable animals. We will continue to reinforce the message that human food obtained by bears can lead to injuries." Four adjacent backcountry campsites 21, 23, 24, and 30 are still closed pending confirmation that the bears were the cause of Bradley's death.

The Preacher and the Bear
An Enlightening Encounter and Memory of bert
August 3-6, 1958

I was about 16 when my preacher asked me to take a hike with him and his son.. The trip would be on the Appalachian trail across the high crest of the Smokies from New Found Gap to Davenport Gap. It was a distance of about 35 miles and would be 4 nights and 5 days on.

I was an Eagle Scout, an experienced camper and had spent a good bit of time in the Smokies. I was able to add some experience to the crew on what was to be a great adventure.

After a very wet and uncomfortable night at the severely crowed Ice Water Springs Shelter we awoke to a clear morning. At breakfast we learned from the other hikers that there were bears. That is, we will have bears in camp at the other shelters. Later that morning, on the trail,the preacher told me not to worry. He could smell bears and we would certainly have advance notice of a bear’s presence.

That evening we arrived at the Peck’s Corner shelter. It was a sturdy open front Adirondack stone lean to with a chain link fence across the front, After supper we saw a mama bear and two cubs emerge into the clearing below the shelter. She sent the cubs up a tree and ambled toward us to check out the smell of our supper. Having had bears in camp before, I knew that if we beat on our pans and yelled , the bear would go away. That is what happened.

The next day we made good time and arrived in the early afternoon at the Tri Corner Knob shelter. Already there was a party of young women, good Presbyterian girls, from Queen’s College in Charlotte. The preacher did not like the idea of another night in a crowded shelter, especially one with nearly all women. He decided we should continue to the next shelter. We had plenty of daylight and it should be no problem. At some point before leaving we were advised…… there’s a mean bear at that camp.

Somewhere along the trail we encountered some of the Queen’s stragglers. One girl was hiking in sneakers and the going was slow. We were told a bear took one of her boots and carried it away.

The Cosby Knob shelter was an Adirondack lean to made from logs. It had no comforting chain link fence enclosure across the front. We settled down, ate and went to bed. It had been a long day. Then we heard the bear. It was just outside the front. We had our packs hung from nails on the log beam across the top front roof line. The packs and the food were what the bear was after. We yelled and beat on something and the bear apparently left. It was hard to tell in the dark. Anyway, we returned to our sleeping bags.

Sometime later, we were again disturbed. It was the bear. The ol’ bear was at home, his home, and he knew all about it. He waited and then came from behind and climbed up on the roof to get the pack from above. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but we discouraged the bear. He left the roof. It was apparent that something must be done to remove the temptation. The solution was to take a length of parachute cord and throw it up and over a tree limb and suspend all the packs and food off the ground out of harm’s way.

The bear came back and gave his attention to the packs. It turned out that by standing on his hind legs and swiping with an extended paw, he could barely reach the preacher’s heavy steel framed rucksack. He swiped one of the pockets and out came our bottle of pancake syrup and a tin of crackers. The syrup bottle broke and made a mess. The bear took off with the cracker tin. We found the cracker tin the next morning mangled, with tooth holes and no crackers.

So there we were. It was the middle of the night, we were tired from the extra miles. The bear was a better player of the game than we. Something had to be done. There was only one solution. Find a higher branch. Throwing a stick tied to a parachute cord over a high branch at night in the dark is no mean feat. It was however finally accomplished, again.

My job was to snub the line around a nail in the shelter while the preacher raised the packs as high as he could over his head. It was being done and then it happened. I can’t remember if the cord broke, or if the knot gave way, but the pack fell. It crashed onto his head and shoulders, knocked him aside and hit the ground beside him. He shouted “DAMN!!!”

There it was…. the preacher said DAMN!! It is a memory still firm in my mind.

The next day we had only a few miles all down hill, so we dumped our excess food in the garbage pit down below the shelter. Included was a big plastic bag of peanut butter. As we were saddling up to hit the trail, we heard a commotion at the garbage pit. There was loud coughing and gagging. We concluded the bear found the peanut butter and devoured the bag whole.

We gained a day and spent 3 nights and 4 days by skipping Tri Corner Knob Shelter

The memory of that wonderful adventure across the high crest of the Smokies with the preacher is one of my favorites.

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