Bear fatally mauls camper in the Ozarks in Arkansas
Authorities, joined by local hunters and their dogs, are searching for the bear after a 60-year-old man was found dead.
A black bear is believed to have fatally attacked a 60-year-old man from Missouri whose body was found Thursday near a campsite in Arkansas, said officials, who cited evidence of a struggle and drag marks leading from the camp into the woods.
Sheriff Glenn Wheeler of Newton County, Arkansas, said Friday that the cause of death of the man at the campsite, Sam’s Throne Campground in the rugged Ozarks, had been officially ruled an “animal mauling,” and that the manner of death was an accident.
He said that the Arkansas State Crime Lab would not confirm that the animal was a bear until DNA sampling was completed, but the victim’s body had extensive wounds that were “consistent with those expected from a large carnivore attack.”
The campground and the surrounding area have been closed while authorities, joined by local hunters and their dogs, search for the bear, which would be killed once it’s captured. Traps have also been set, officials said.
Wheeler said in an interview Sunday that trapping the bear presents a challenge.
“No matter how much human food and trash and bait there is, when our local acorns start dropping from the trees, they shut off visiting human food,” he said. “They fatten up on acorns because that’s their natural preferred food. And when they start falling, it makes baiting them very difficult. And our acorns have just started falling.”
The campground will be closed for at least the rest of the month, unless authorities are sure that they’ve found the right bear through postmortem DNA samples.
“We believe this bear is extremely habituated to this area and not afraid of humans, based on his encounter with it, and a potential encounter with the same bear by another man recently,” Wheeler said. “There was no attack. But it was not afraid of him. And that’s very unusual for bears not to be afraid of humans.”
He said that bear was a young male bear “that was likely weaned and kicked off its mother this year.” He said he believes that the bear, which he estimated to be 100 to 125 pounds, will return to the same area.
The sheriff said, without specifying, that the bear also has some identifying markings, that “within a fair degree of certainty, we will be able to tell if a bear is not the one responsible and allow it to go on its way.”
The sheriff’s office responded to the campground Thursday after it received a call to check on a camper. The caller said that their father was at the site, and that he had not checked in for a few days.
The victim’s name has not been released. The man’s family told investigators that he had sent photos Tuesday morning of a bear in his camp. The man was not heard from again.
In Franklin County, Arkansas, about 90 miles west, a man who was attacked last month by a black bear died of injuries sustained in the encounter. The victim, Vernon Patton, 72, was working on a tractor on the side of a road when he was attacked, witnesses said.
The American black bear, which is the smallest bear species in the United States and the most common bear found in North America, is the only bear species found in Arkansas, according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
The commission estimates that there are more than 5,000 bears in the state. Bear hunting season began in Newton County on Sept. 17.
The black bear is the least aggressive bear species, according to the World Animal Foundation, and it attacks humans only when startled or in self-defense.
It said that the 750,000 black bears in North America kill, on average, less than one person per year.
“I don’t want this to become open season on any bear that someone may see, as most bears fear humans and run away,” Wheeler said, warning local residents not to feed or approach bears. “But, at the same time, don’t put yourself or others in jeopardy.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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