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Always there have been the bears in and around Anchorage. Never before has there been a bear mauling in town. Not that the horrific attack on 15-year-old mountain biker Petra Davis last weekend came as a shock to those familiar with local bears. A small group of wildlife biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have been warning for years that something like this could happen ... Some who have been hiking, running and mountain biking in the park and the adjacent Chugach State Park for decades say they see more bears and more bear sign than ever...

Planning a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center? Here's something you should know: leave your food and beverages behind. The Juneau attraction has imposed a food ban to protect both people and black bears. Water, however, is allowed. The no-food policy covers the two public parking lots... and beach areas.

The husband of a 70-year-old grandmother who was killed by a bear in northern Quebec ... Conservation experts set traps after Friday evening's attack, but ... the bear was still at large in the wilds of northern Quebec. As she scouted a fishing hole for walleye, Ms. Lavoie became separated from her husband. Barely 10 minutes later, Mr. Lavoie felt something was amiss and went searching for his wife of 51 years. Metres away he came upon the nightmarish scene of her body being dragged into the forest by a bear. Mr. Lavoie chased the predator for nearly 200 metres...

Gotta love PETA. Just gotta love ‘em. Well, not really. One of the animal rights group’s more obscure pressure campaigns involves trying to convince the Queen of England to give up the natural black-bear fur hats that Buckingham Palace guards have worn for 200 years. Because — y’know — British monarchs have always responded so well to public pressure from nitwits. Are black bears endangered? Nope. The species covers most of North America. And black bear populations are growing in Canada, where Her Majesty’s funny hats come from. So what’s the big deal? PETA hates people who wear fur. And...

The parents of the 11-year-old boy killed by a black bear last summer in American Fork Canyon are suing the U.S. Forest Service and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. They say more should have been done to prevent their son's death. Step-father Tim Mulvey, his wife Rebecca Ives and Sam’s father say they have lived with the horror of that father's day weekend every day since and now they want to make sure it never happens to anyone else's family. It is grief beyond comprehension for most of us; a child ripped away from his family in the middle of...

SENATE, No. 1415 STATE OF NEW JERSEY 213th LEGISLATURE INTRODUCED MARCH 3, 2008 Sponsored by: Senator STEVEN V. OROHO District 24 (Sussex, Hunterdon and Morris) SYNOPSIS Permits use of deadly force against black bears in certain cases. CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT As introduced. An Act concerning black bears and the lawful use of deadly force, and supplementing chapter 4 of Title 23 of the Revised Statutes. Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: 1. a. In addition to the lawful taking of a black bear by a licensed hunter during authorized times...

The number of black bears that got in trouble between late November and late December nearly doubled last year as compared to the same period in 2006... In a report to the state Fish and Game Council, the division's five-member Black Bear Unit said it received 50 calls for assistance between Nov. 20 and Dec. 20. During the same period in 2006, the black bear unit fielded 27 calls. The unit uses a category system to rank misbehaving black bears. The most nefarious activity -- such as unprovoked attacks on people or animals, entries or attempted entries into houses, tents...

Bears that barge in on people in the forest have become enough of a nuisance that more of them should be hunted, state wildlife managers have decided. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, responding to a spike in human-bear contacts and an 11-year-old boy's death in June, want to issue 296 black bear hunting permits for Utah's 2008 spring and fall hunts, a 20 percent increase from the 248 permits offered this year. DWR officials say the state's black bear population is high enough to warrant the permit increase. Wildlife managers also say bears and humans clashed too many times...

Advice from FWP not always applicable. If you're on a sight-seeing trip through the mountains while carrying your hunting rifle, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' advice regarding grizzly bears is great. But if you ever hope to actually fill a tag with an elk or deer, the advice has some problems. Making noise For example, one piece of advice to avoid bears is to make plenty of noise as you hike through bear country. Another is to hunt in pairs or groups. Yet another is to avoid cover that might hide a bear. Unfortunately, most hunters would agree that the...

A week ago I chuckled while reading the Pennsylvania Game Commission's helpful tips on dealing with black bears. It had to do with avoiding problems should one of the bears get too close and personal with a human. Having spent a good deal of time in bear country over the years and having watched, admired and, yes, hunted them, I don't know if there truly is any good advice save for the standard, "Don't put garbage in easy-to-open trash cans outside your house because it will attract bears." Don't laugh. It can happen fairly close to Washington in nearby Loudoun...

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is considering lengthening the black bear hunting season ... as a way to help reduce the number of "home entry" incidents. The proposed change would set the opening of bear season in the Catskills region on the same day, Saturday, Nov. 17, as the start of the regular deer season. Bear season starts two days later. On Sept. 1, a Greene County resident found a sow and three cubs inside his home... The four bears fled, but on the same day, a different, male bear entered the same home twice... Between 2001 and 2003,...

The commotion started about a quarter to seven, as Tiffany Barnes dressed for a day of beauty school. It would take 22 hours, a shotgun blast and a dead black bear before her Moore Haven neighborhood would feel safe again. Missy, the Jack Russell terrier, whimpered and growled at Tiffany's feet on Thursday morning. She pulled her curtain back and looked into the back yard. Clear as the sunrise, she saw one of her father's puppies, the one she called Lucius, hanging from the mouth of an enormous black bear. Lucius was gone. His litter mate, the one Tiffany called...

Scary incidents involving black bears keep happening across North Jersey even as the Corzine Administration continues to say hunting is not a valid way to stop them. On July 13, a bear tried to enter a Knowlton woman's kitchen, where some freshly baked muffins were cooling... Four days later... a bear ripped off the window screens of a Vernon home and entered the kitchen. And on the same day, a bear entered two tents in Worthington State Forest. Despite these close calls, the DEP's commissioner, who canceled the 2006 bear hunt, remains steadfast in her position that non-lethal methods of...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Public Hearing on Black Bear Situation in New Jersey   Tuesday, July 31, 2007   Please Attend This Important Meeting Wednesday, August 8 On Wednesday, August 8, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is hosting a public hearing at the State Museum at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the preservation and management goals for the black bear population in New Jersey.  This will be the only opportunity to make it known that New Jersey hunters want the bear hunting season restored.   The State Museum is located at located at 205 West State...

Park officials are hoping to break the bruins of their dining habits. But if the bears stay, they may have to be killed. A couple of marauding black bears have prompted Rocky Mountain National Park officials to close five backcountry campsites in hopes of shifting the bears' dining habits. At least 13 break-ins have been reported since June 26, including nine just outside the park's eastern boundary near the Wild Basin area, and rangers fear the bears are learning to associate humans with food. Park officials have closed the Pine Ridge, Tahosa, Aspen Knoll, Siskin and North St. Vrain campsites...

Bears cannot be legally hunted or trapped in Connecticut, but that may soon change. The Department of Environmental Protection is working on a management plan to deal with the state's growing bear population. Management methods may include banning the feeding of bears, creating seasons for hunting, official culling, educational programs, and relocating problem bears. DEP officials working on the management plan expect to submit it for the commissioner's approval by the year's end. The DEP believes that there are close to 300 black bears in Connecticut, and the agency estimates the bear population may be growing by 10 percent to...

Two campgrounds have been closed because of bear activity and the recent fatal mauling of a boy has the state on a bear alert. One of the campgrounds is the popular Blackhawk campground, which is south of Payson on the Mt. Nebo Scenic Loop. The second was at Ledgefork campground above the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir, about 45 miles east of Salt Lake City. A bear has been raiding camp leftovers there and might be losing its fear of people. The Associated Press reported the campground closed Monday, after the report that 11-year-old Samuel Ives was fatally mauled by a...

The Gila National Forest has temporarily closed the area around Quemado Lake, including all the lake’s campgrounds, because of bears. Forest officials say several bears have been frequenting the campgrounds and are becoming increasingly aggressive. The state Department of Game and Fish is working to capture and relocate the bears. The closure went into effect Wednesday.

TWRA ANSWERS PUBLIC CONCERNS OVER BEAR SITUATION The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has received numerous calls about its decision to euthanize a female black bear that injured an individual in Sevier County last Friday. Bob Nichols, Regional Manager wanted to advise the public concerning TWRA’s decision. “The problem with this and most bear problems in Tennessee is people, or rather what people do or do not do, said Nichols. “This particular bear was day active (not normal for a "wild bear" especially with cubs), in the middle of a condominium complex, (not in a natural area at a natural...

RICHMOND (AP) -- Two black bears killed last month after one of them bit a child were buried this weekend at an emotional memorial service attended by 500 mourners. The bodies of the bears, euthanized to be tested for rabies after biting a 4-year-old who put his arm through the fence surrounding their 2-acre habitat, were exhumed from a landfill and cremated last week after a public outcry over their deaths intensified. "This is where they belong," said a teary Samantha Monk, 9, of Glen Allen, who joined several people in laying flowers and wreaths at the grave. "They shouldn't...

The Upper McClintock Trail in Boulder County is being shut down again because of bears. If visitors encounter a bear, the following tips are recommended: · NEVER run. Running can make a bear chase you; · Keep your distance. Back slowly away from the bear. . Avoid direct eye contact · Gather children around you and leash your dog . Never throw food to distract a bear; · Fight back if attacked. Black bears have been driven away when people fight with rocks, sticks, binoculars or even bare hands...

Supporters, foes get emotional over hunt A policy aimed at managing New Jersey's burgeoning black bear population drew 300 people last night, most of whom let their passions fly about the proposal's most emotional aspect: hunting the bruins. The policy was labeled everything from "careful science" to cheap propaganda during a public hearing at Cook College in New Brunswick. "Bear hunters want a bear rug on their floor and a bear head on their wall. That's what this is all about ... a trophy hunt," said Janet Borinsky of Short Hills. Agust Gudmundsson of Warren County countered that the growing...

| Push is on for a new bear huntFriday, September 9, 2005 By KATHLEEN CARROLLSTAFF WRITER There are too many black bears in New Jersey, and allowing annual hunts is the best way to stabilize their numbers, according to a New Jersey Fish and Game Council report released Thursday.In its comprehensive Black Bear Management Plan, the first such policy analysis such 1997, the council reported that contraception and relocation are too unproven, costly and slow."Problems associated with black bears will continue to grow unless the population is stabilized," the report cautioned. "A tool that will quickly reduce the population...

An increase in the number of encounters between black bears and humans in recent years in places like Aspen has got some observers contending the problem exists because a spring hunt was eliminated. State wildlife officers claim that is nonsense. They say hunters are killing more bears now, when hunting is limited to fall, than they ever killed when hunting was allowed in both spring and fall. Colorado voters eliminated the spring hunt in a 1992 election. The ballot issue championed by animal rights' advocates also banned the use of bait and dogs to hunt bears. Bear problems have skyrocketed...

TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey wildlife officials are considering a plan to create bear-free zones as a way to manage the state's surging black bear population. The unusual approach would make urban and other densely populated areas off-limits to bears and restrict the bruin population in regions such as southern New Jersey, where the bears are far less plentiful than in the state's mountainous northwest region. "Most people agree, you don't want bears in areas like Hudson County, Union County and Middlesex County _ all urban areas with no real habitat for bears," Len Wolgast, a wildlife biology professor and...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 25, 2003 Contact: Jack Kaskey 609-984-1795 Bear Sterilization - A Statement of Bradley M. Campbell, Commissioner (03/135) TRENTON – Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell today released the following statement in response to the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance suggestion that New Jersey bears be injected with Neutersol, a chemical approved for the sterilization of puppies: "I fail to see how injecting an untested chemical, at speculative doses, into the testes of our majestic black bear population could possibly be considered humane. There have been no studies to determine whether this would be...

So, which is it? Are Marylanders overwhelmingly repulsed by the thought of hunters shooting black bears or do we think hunting is a legitimate way to keep the critter population under control? It depends, I guess, on who's doing the asking and who's doing the answering. Days ago, the Department of Natural Resources released a poll of 831 residents indicating that 65 percent approve of a bear season as a management tool. The approval rating rises to 78 percent of respondents who live in "Bear Country," Maryland's two westernmost counties, where most of the animals roam. Those figures fly in...

Ten days after the end of New Jersey's bear hunt, which was intended to reduce potentially dangerous encounters between people and bears in the northwestern corner of the state, police officers on Tuesday killed a black bear that tried to build its den under the deck of a house in rural Morris County. The police in Kinnelon, N.J., responding after the animal killed the family dog, said the bear's aggressive behavior was unusual. Sgt. John Schwartz said that bears, which are common to the area, might be disturbed by a recent building boom. "They're becoming victims of their space being...

Keith Meyers/The New York Times Wildlife officials at a weigh station check a 200 female bear killed by a hunter. Keith Meyers/The New York Times Protestors outside the bear weigh station. Keith Meyers/The New York Times Harry McDole and Jim Aumick Jr. killed a female bear last weekend. VERNON, N.J., Dec. 8 — Thirty-three years after New Jersey's last bear hunt, hundreds of hunters armed with shotguns and muzzle-loading rifles tromped through a foot of snow on Monday in search of some of what could be as many as 3,300 black bears thought to be living in northwest New...

HARRISBURG - The 2003 bear seasons may yet become the best harvest year Pennsylvania hunters have ever had, according to harvest reports from Pennsylvania Game Commission check stations. Through Dec. 2, hunters had already taken 2,952 bears and still had four more days of extended season in Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) 3D to topple the state record of 3,075 bears set in 2000. Equally intriguing is the incredible number of huge bears hunters are shooting this fall. This week, three bears exceeding 800 pounds were taken in Pike and Monroe counties. The largest was a hard-to-believe 864-pound male bear taken...

It's no secret that America's adults are getting fat and sedentary. Its children are becoming couch mini-potatoes. Even its pets are overweight. Now the fast-food lifestyle is getting to the bears, too. A study of black bears in the Sierra Nevada has found that those animals that live in and around cities and towns are less active than those in wilderness, spending less of their time foraging for food and fewer days in their winter dens. These and other behavioral changes are making the bears heavier. Advertisement The culprit, say the study's authors, Dr. Jon P. Beckmann and Dr. Joel...

<p>Alex Vorhies had his escape route in sight.</p> <p>He purposely left his car doors unlocked, just in case the black bear in his backyard decided to approach him.</p> <p>"My wife was yelling not to go," said Vorhies of Morris Township. "I had an escape plan."</p>

Plan to Attend the May 22 Fish & Wildlife Hearing on Black Bear Hunting The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife has proposed re-opening a hunting season on black bears for the first time since 1970. However, the bear season is not safe just yet, as virulent anti-hunting groups continue to ignore common sense and push for a ban on hunting. Without your input, black bear hunting may be stopped before the season ever opens! The Fish and Game Council is holding a public hearing to get input on the proposed wildlife code changes, including the bear season. Sportsmen...

MIFFLIN COUNTY(PA) MAN NOT GUILTY IN BEAR KILLING By Grace Hatton What would have been the one of the heaviest penalties ever for any out of season bear shooting was set aside by Judge C. Joseph Rehkamp recently. Last April, David Vogt of Mifflin County, PA, responded to his wife's screams and shot a 630 pound bear that came towards her when she was holding her dog in her arms on her porch. She had been about to put the dog out that evening. Initially the local district justice had fined Vogt $800 plus $5,000 replacement costs. In 2001, a...

Bear incident a rare occurrence By Mark E. Jolly Staff Writer 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...