Bear Incident a Rare Occurrence

In the past 100 years, there have only been about 50 human fatalities caused by black bears in North America.

The black bear that killed a 5-month-old girl in New York State on Monday made headlines Tuesday, but it did so for the same reason most stories make the newspaper: It was an incredibly rare occurrence.

In the past 25 years, there have been fewer than 15 incidents between humans and black bears in Pennsylvania, none of them fatal, according to state Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser. And almost always, the altercations resulted from a mistake by the human: feeding the bear, approaching or splitting up a mother and cubs, throwing trash on a bear in a trash container.

In the past 100 years, there have only been about 50 human fatalities caused by black bears in North America, and only two of those were in the eastern United States.

"Black bears in Pennsylvania, and for the most part the eastern part of the country, are more apt to run when encountering humans," Feaser said. "For the most part, bears are just looking for food. Bears in Pennsylvania are more likely to run than get into a conflict."

Pennsylvania has about 15,000 black bears, the only bear native to the state; there are about 750,000 black bears in North America.

The bears can be found in any part of the state, and the number of complaints of nuisance bears has been increasing in recent years, Feaser said. Nuisance bears are those that come to view human settlements as good places to find food, a dangerous fact for bears to learn.

The bear that killed Esther Schwimmer on Monday the Catskills had a mixture of wild vegetation and people food - even aluminum foil and fruit labels - in its stomach, showing it was familiar with people and their garbage, said Ward Stone, wildlife pathologist for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. Stone even theorized the bear may have mistaken the infant for food, not recognizing her smell as human.

"Babies smell different. They have powders on them, milk on their clothes that may have been spilled," Stone said. "Maybe something was in the baby's diaper that smelled like milk."

Various tests on the 155-pound male bear continued one day after he knocked Esther out of her stroller and carried her into nearby woods, as her mother shuttled her 4- and 2-year-old siblings inside. The 3-year-old bear dropped the infant after witnesses began throwing rocks at it, but the baby died shortly afterward of severe head and neck injuries.

Lou Berchielli, a DEC black bear specialist, speculated that the bear merely grabbed Esther because he was curious.

"We could come up with any individual quirky explanation that we want," said Lynn Rogers, director of both the Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center in Ely, Minn. "It's possible, but unprovable."

In May 2000, an adult female bear mauled a teacher to death near Gatlinburg, Tenn., in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There were no witnesses, and no cause was determined. The other 48 deaths that occurred in the past century were in remote parts of Canada and Alaska, where bears aren't accustomed to seeing people, Rogers said.

"Bears are just big chickens," Rogers said. "They've survived by running without question. The littlest hound can chase the biggest bear up a tree."

For each North American resident killed by a black bear, there are 45 people killed by domestic dogs and 120 killed by bees, Rogers said.

But the statistics don't console Esther's parents, Shmaya and Rachel Schwimmer, or other summer residents of the Machne Ohel Feige colony 70 miles northwest of New York City, in the heart of what is known as the Borscht Belt.

Esther's funeral and burial were held Monday night in South Brunswick, N.J., in accordance with Jewish tradition for quick burials.

"When the phrase is made 'from the cradle to the grave,' it's meant to have 50 to 70 years in between," said Isaac Abraham, an Orthodox Jewish community leader from Brooklyn and one of the summer residents of the Machne Ohel Feige colony. "This child didn't even live as long as her pregnancy."

Rachel Schwimmer's father, Abraham Perlstein, said his daughter could not discuss the tragedy. "The wound is very fresh. It all happened in a matter of seconds," he said from Brooklyn. "She actually has no guilt. She was a very caring mother. Life has to go on."

We had so few bears in PA they had to stop hunting for them 20 years ago, for 2 or 3 years. They have made a big comeback!

Also, note the difference between our little blacks, and the big browns, grizzlies and polar bears out north and west. I think the big bears regard black bears as food in Alaska, same as stranded motorists.

In the past 100 years, there have only been about 50 human fatalities caused by black bears in North America, and only two of those were in the eastern United States.

Rather misleading. When there were a lot of bears, people went about armed and made a habit of shooting bears. By the time people started making a habit of running around unarmed and ignorant of wildlife, there weren't very many bears.

Now people are running around unarmed, ignorant of wildlife, and doing everything possible to increase the number of bears. It won't take 100 years for bears to kill the next fifty.

I was at a private campground near Kinzua, PA a couple of weeks ago. The owner ( who had fled from NJ several years ago ) reported bears were a more-or-less constant problem: coming in- night or day - and rooting around the dumpsters. He said he had tried almost everything to discourage them-but had to be pretty restrained when there were non-hunters in the campground.

His favored method was to ambush the bears once they stuck their noses into a dumpster.He would shoot them in the hind-quarters with a .22LR-shot load.He did this, as you might imagine, from the relative safety of his pickup. ( The bears had learned to ignore motor vehicles. )

He claimed it was effective on individual bears, which would give the campground wide berth thereafter; BUT, there were an awful lot of bears around, and there were always new "students" to be "taught".

I was warned about a large black while trout fishing up in Northern Tioga County (PA -- just south of the NY border) when hunting was suspended to allow the bear population to rebound.

The bear had a deer stashed in a tree, and all the locals knew about it and avoided the area.

I was shocked at the 15k estimate of the population -- no wonder they're all over the place, plus the ones coming in from NJ, where they really need some thinning.

They used to have an "open air garbage dump" outside of Coundersport, where people just threw whatever they wanted off the side of the road.

I visited during the day -- no bears -- but no way after dark, that's just asking for trouble!

I don't know if they cleaned the mess up or not.

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