Colorado Bear Attack
Bears
Salt Lake News just reported a 5 year old child was attacked in the yard near Grand Junction. Child is in hospital, game and fish still looking for bear. Sad deal, Prayers for recovery and healing.
See link
Just what is a 5 yr old doing out and about at 230am?
I have a bunch of customers in grand junction. I guess the bears wander through the neighborhoods all night. Sounds like a spring bear season would be a good remedy.
Brad, That is my question also. On the news it stated she heard her dogs barking.
Sad Story. Hope she is ok. Man that would be tough to see. Couple things....
1. 5 year olds should not be outside alone at that hour 2. CO needs a spring bear season. Totally insane and piss poor management to not have one.
Sad about the child. It's not piss poor management. It's a piss poor decision by the voters in Colorado that outlawed the spring bear season.
I hope she recovers well.
They killed the suspected bear. Now we will have to endure all the idiots who will complain about that,
Any updates on the child? Hoping for a full recovery. Screw the bear.
I have a 4,6,&8 year old. If any of them went outside at 2 am I would likely not know. I use to sleep with my eyes open but found I sleep much more soundly with them closed. ;) Sad deal, hopefully she has a full recovery.
The news this morning mentioned the parents 'changed' their story a little...
Seems as tho the 5yr old was outside camping in a tent by herself
Still shouldn’t have to worry about a bear in the yard!
"Still shouldn’t have to worry about a bear in the yard!"
Move to New York City!
VA has an "urban archery season" that runs from Sept to March to help quell a he ever had spending urban and suburban deer population. In some parts of the country, it sounds like bears could use a fairly liberal backyard season as well....
I live in a regular neighborhood in over populated Loveland and we get an occasional bear. My kids always talk about the "bear tree" where a yearling was snoozing a couple years ago.
I'm waiting for a "frontyard" season for bears here in the Poconos! ;-)
I don't worry about bears, we have them around.
I always say if you get attacked by a black Bear. It’s about the same odds of winning the lottery.
Not afraid of bears or lions.
I think those odds may be different for small children. It’s a bit more intimidating for a black bear to attack a 200#man than it is for them to attack a 50# child
The bottom line is Colorado residents got the bear management they voted for. But even if we could still hunt them in the spring, this event is likely unrelated. That bear was there for one reason - people have been feeding it, intentionally or unintentionally. It's not like it's been attacking kids every other day. It was there in the wee hours of the morning, likely to AVOID people. The kid probably interrupted it's meal and startled it. Unfortunate for sure, but killing it was an over reaction and unnecessary. At most, it should have been relocated and the residents should be educated.
I would say you are probably right about the bear Ziek, but I disagree about your solution. Once a bear attacks a human(for WHATEVER reason) it should be euthanized. We have a lot of problem bears in the Poconos. Lots of trap and release in our area. They used to take the bears 20-30 miles to get them away from populated areas. What the Game Commission discovered over the years was it didn't matter if you took the bear 2 or 22 miles, if it was a true nuisance bear, it would return to the area. Once a bear was (unsuccessfully) trapped and relocated multiple times, it was then put down. And any aggressive behavior or attack on human was an automatic death sentence(even first time offenses).
No interruption. Kid heard a commotion outside. Kids were trying to stay up until the father returned from a trip. Kid went outside and sat on the stoop. Bear came up and sniffed her. She stood up to go back in the house and it grabbed her and started dragging her away.
Ziek U must not have children. I respect and appreciate bears but ur statement is nuts. I hope to have a bear tag in Colorado this sept and want to help with the overpopulation in any way I Legally can.
Yes, his statement was nuts.
How would killing the bear, sometime after the attack, help that kid? Do you just want to punish the bear? If it had some history of being aggressive, that's different. Does not seem to be the case here. Otherwise, you would have to be in favor of killing ALL bears, or even ALL potentially "dangerous" animals. That is nuts!
If it were in fact the bear that attacked...... it has PROVEN to be a dangerous bear. It has shown a proclivity to attack. IMO it should be eliminated.
I don't want all humans locked up or given the chair either. Only those who have shown themselves a danger to society. Then you remove them from society.
Ziek, I have to ask, are you a hunter? Your comments on threads seem to reflect that you value animals or at least bears more than people. A bear that attacks a person needs to be killed, period. There is no fairy tale place where animals get relocated and just live in peace, there are people in those areas too which you would be putting at risk. And hunting bears spring and fall keeps them wary of people and out of their yards. I run a bear bait where I feed 10+ bears a year within 600 yards of my house and I hunt them there killing the odd one, they know they are hunted and steer clear of people. They very rarely ever come in my yard, even at night, which is stacked full of bear bait for 2 months of the year, if they did I would kill them legally and there would still be 10+ bears a year on the bait. There just wouldn't be the ones that like to wander through my yard.
You don't have to kill ALL the bears you just kill the ones that attack people, then they are a lot less likely to do it again. It's nuts not to!
The idiots voted and got rid of baiting and spring bear in Colorado. Now we have “problem bears.” Every year officials are having to kill hundred and hundreds of problem Bears. Because they are breaking into homes or showing aggression.
Too bad they voted that way. And we as hunters couldn’t be the ones harvesting them.
"If it were in fact the bear that attacked...... it has PROVEN to be a dangerous bear."
Well, according to reports, they "thought" it might be when they killed it. There was no way to identify it before it was killed. And ALL bears are dangerous. Again, should they just start killing all the bears? Or would it be more appropriate to educate people?
"Ziek, I have to ask, are you a hunter?"
Seriously? Have you seen my photo page? In over 20 years living at my present home, I know of only one bear that has been killed - by me, on a legal hunt. We see bears and cougars regularly. Yet none of them have become a problem. Could it be that the few people up here KNOW how to live near wildlife? ALL of Colorado is habitat to potentially dangerous animals, even where people live. It's a fact of life. Occasionally, there will be problems, usually created by people. If it had to be killed, so be it. But this looks more like a knee jerk reaction to mollify the residents, rather than to address a real problem.
And just to be clear, I was one of a fairly small number of people, even including hunters, that actively fought against banning our spring hunt. It would go a long way to reducing all types of bear/human conflicts.
I love bears more than anyone. They amaze and me and I enjoy hunting them and working to conserve them. I have to deal with problem bears in my job and u are right that it is usually the humans causing the problem. That being said there are times that lethal force is justified and this is one of them. When a bear attacks a human it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The bear is the problem.
From: Ziek16-May-18
How would killing the bear, sometime after the attack, help that kid? Do you just want to punish the bear? If it had some history of being aggressive, that's different. Does not seem to be the case here
Ziek, Killing the bear does NOT help that kid. But it sure DOES prevent a future attack by that bear! It has NOTHING to do with punishment- has everything to do with prevention!
And I have to strongly disagree- dragging a child off into the woods and killing it sure meets my definition of “aggressive!”
Ziek, you aren't making any sense. You blame the kid or her parents yet, you have zero idea if they have fed it or, promoted the attack through conditioning it. The bear crossed the line. The bear dies. That is the way it works. No one is saying anything you imply.
No three strikes for bears, when a kid is mauled it has to be put down. It is a shame they don't have a prusuit season for houndsmen, I am a firm believer they are smart and relate humans and dogs.
They got the right bear. 2 year old female. Came up to the cpw vehicle before they shot it.
If killing a bear that attacked a kid causes some concern, folks should take few minutes to read the game damage claims for sheep. In one claim, herders were killing 20-30 bears a year and we paid out multiple tens of thousands of dollars to the rancher. There is more than one like that and its year after year.
I'll try to be more clear. I never put any blame on the kid or her parents. I'm not saying that a problem animal should never be killed. But I don't think that should be the default setting. The circumstances should be considered as well as other options. To avoid future problems, steps should also be taken to educate, regulate and enforce measures to prevent similar encounters. Even if everything possible is done, there are still no guarantees. You can't expect to go through life in complete safety.
Ziek, The problem is more and more people are moving to the country from the city! They have NO CLUE! You can "educate" them all you want- they just don't "get it!"
Our local WCO(Wildlife Conservation Officer= game warden) in charge of nuisance bear complaints told me once I would simply not believe the stupidity of these people! He got a call once and when he got there a lady and her 2 young kids were throwing small rocks(pebbles) at the bear to "scare it away". He immediately yelled at them and asked them what their plan was had it turned and charged them. She said "we'll just run away"
He eventually got so frustrated with dealing with these people and the bear problems they caused, that he got a lateral promotion as a Land Manager with the Game Commission so he would not have to deal with them! In fact, he used to call them Nuisance PEOPLE complaints! (NOT nuisance BEAR complaints ;-)
The vast majority of the problem bears were caused by people feeding and habituating the bears in other ways. What they did not get, is that this kind of behavior eventually will lead to the death of that cute, cuddly little "pet". : (
A CPW employee told us a story of responding to a call of a bear in a Denver neighborhood. He arrived and tracked down the Newfoundland that had gotten out of its yard.
I don't even live in the "country" and we get bears. Some people saw a sow with cubs in a tree. Then stood around taking pictures whilst trying to figure out why the mama bear was so distraught. They assumed it was because the cubs couldn't come down from the tree. G and F said just leave them alone. But the people were worried because what if the Cubs couldn't come down the tree!?
I assume we'll have an attack on one of these idiots sometime this summer. Unfortunately. And it'll end with the bear being screwed.
I went on a bear call and the guy told me the dum bear went up a tree in his yard so he then told me he shot it in the butt with a shotgun then as it was going up the tree he shot it in the butt one more time and the DUM bear went all the way to the top of the tree. I then told him some here is DUM.!! NOW go away and the bear will be just fine
