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All Play Articles
When Matt Blaney stands up at the front of the tour bus parked on an old logging road, he has a can of pepper spray in his hand, a relaxed smile on his face and the rapt attention of his guests.
Using a mix of natural charm and the special training he got from customer service experts at London Drugs, he makes sure people understand one simple rule. Do what he says and you can safely get astonishingly close to some of the biggest carnivores in North America.
SUPERIOR, Wis. (AP) - Police say a man has been hospitalized after being mauled by a bear in the southern edge of Superior.
The Duluth News Tribune reports Superior police officers were called to the southern edge of town on a report of a mauling about 8 p.m. Saturday.
Police say the man was with a female hunting partner who had set up over some bait, hoping to take a deer, when the bear appeared. The man tried to chase it off, but the animal turned on him.
BILLINGS, Mont. - A grizzly bear that fatally mauled a hiker in Yellowstone National Park was killed after DNA evidence linked the animal to the scene of a second hiker's death a month later, a park official said Monday.
The decision to euthanize the 250-pound female bear was meant to protect park visitors and staff, Superintendent Dan Wenk said.
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Bear No. 646 was eventually tracked to a location 1.7 miles southwest of the trapping/mauling site. It was shot dead from a helicopter by U.S. Wildlife Services at 7:15 a.m. on June 19.
After the incident at Kitty Creek, all bear research trapping operations were halted for 50 days until new protocol was established by now-retired IGBST head Chuck Schwartz. Even with the layoff, officials managed to capture a record 95 grizzlies in 2010, 75 of those for bad behavior. In all, 295 grizzly-human conflicts were reported in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), the most since record-keeping began in 1992.
BOISE, Idaho - An Idaho elk hunter who apparently stumbled across a bear's resting spot Saturday was hospitalized after the animal bit him and broke his right arm, officials said.
Richard Paini, 40, suffered puncture wounds and an injured left hand along with the broken forearm in the attack at about 9 a.m. He was taken to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.
A 39-year-old hunter killed by a wounded grizzly bear yelled out to draw the 400-pound male bear toward him in an effort to keep it from attacking his young hunting partner, the man's family said.
"They both shot it and it kept coming," Steve Stevenson's mom, Janet Price, said on Saturday. "Steve yelled at it to try and distract it, and it swung around and took him down. It's what my son would have done automatically, for anybody."
Secure attractants. It's a concept as simple as wearing your seatbelt, and yet for some campers in the bear-heavy areas around Whistler, it's not considered until after a bear has rifled through their campsite or vehicle.
But for those in the Cal-Cheak area, there's only so much campers can do without bear-resistant food storage bins.
Learn how to stay always be alert and aware while camping in Bear Country.
DULUTH - Hunters participating in Minnesota's bear season, which opens Thursday, are asked to avoid shooting radio-collared research bears. The bears are marked with large colorful ear tags or colorful streamers and should be easy to spot.
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources researchers are monitoring about 35 radio-collared black bears, most of them in northwestern Minnesota, especially near Thief Lake Wildlife Management Area and the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge.
BRANCVILLE, N.J. -- Environmental officials say the black bear that wandered into a campsite in a northwestern New Jersey state forest this week has been captured and euthanized.
DEP spokesman Lawrence Hajna says the 18-month-old male bruin was caught in a snare around 10:15 p.m. Friday, not far from the campsite in Stokes State Forest in Sussex County.
Strawberry Point, a popular camping area north of Pemberton, will remain closed for the long weekend if a troublesome black bear has not been captured or moved on in time, conservation officers said this week.
“We’ve had a bear there that’s been extremely aggressive and approached campers for food,” Sgt. Chris Doyle of the Conservation Officer Service, said Wednesday (July 27). “It’s totally lost its fear of people and has received food rewards from campsites and has repeatedly approached people for food and tried to chase people out of their sites in order to look for food.
The survivors of a grizzly bear mauling Saturday night in the Talkeetna Mountains are speaking out about the attack. A group of teens were backpacking deep in the wilderness near the Chutlina River when they say a grizzly bear jumped on them.
Seven young men who were part of a 30-day National Outdoor Leadership School program leaned on their training, trust, and faith to not only survive a bear mauling in the Alaska wilderness, but to live to talk about it.
A group of hikers and a fisherman survived close encounters with a black bear at Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park in B.C. - but the animal was not so lucky.
It had to be put down after being deemed a threat to humans, said Parks Canada spokesman Omar McDadi.
"Parks Canada is saddened by the loss of any wild animal, but this bear had become predatory in nature and presented too great a threat to visitors and residents," he said. "Parks Canada had no choice but to put the animal down."
A weekend stay at the luxurious Fairmont Chateau Whistler can hardly be considered roughing it, but a weekend package offered early next month will take hotel guests out of their fuzzy white robes and slippers, and "into the wild."
The iconic Whistler resort has teamed with the National Geographic Society to offer a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with the local bear population.
Plans to allow firearms in Canada's northernmost parks so people can better protect themselves from polar bears should not be extended south, experts say, despite recent incidents in British Columbia and Wyoming.
Parks Canada made headlines with the announcement this week, but Alberta guides, wildlife experts and parks staff interviewed expressed no interest in bringing a similar strategy to this region.
In this occasional feature, the National Post tells you everything you need to know about a complicated issue. Today, Jane Switzer examines the recent slew of bear attacks in British Columbia. Three attacks and an attempted home invasion by grizzly and black bears have occurred over the last three weeks, including the mauling death of a 72-year-old woman near Lillooet, B.C.
VANCOUVER -- Human-bear conflicts are down so far this year, government statistics show, despite recent headlines that might lead you to believe otherwise.
Over the last three weeks a series of incidents in B.C. has left one Lillooet-area woman dead from a black bear attack, one man seriously injured after being attacked by a grizzly bear at Rivers Inlet, a jogger attacked by a black bear near Mount Seymour and one North Vancouver woman terrified after a black bear attacked her dog and tried to force its way into her home.
MOOSE, Wyo. -- Add bear spray canisters to the list of items that can be recycled in Grand Teton National Park.
Collection bins have been set up at several locations in the park where people can drop off unwanted bear spray canisters for recycling.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - A man out on a hike with his wife in Yellowstone National Park's backcountry was killed by a female grizzly bear after the couple apparently surprised the bear and its cubs Wednesday, park officials said.
The attack was the first fatal bear mauling in the park since 1986.
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