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Breaking News
Patrick Young, Herald Staff Writer: As summer winds down and bears rush to pack on the pounds before hibernation, at least a few ursines have exhibited unusually aggressive behavior.
Director of Bear Smart Durango Bryan Peterson said unprovoked, aggressive behavior is unusual for black bears, but it's not unheard of.
A recent pair of incidents were reported in which bears exhibited this type of behavior, both taking place in the heart of Durango.
Heidi Hanse, Lake County Leader : ST. IGNATIUS - We all have horror stories about bad dates.
Andrew White and Dakota Peterson's story might just take the cake.
The two were hiking in the Mission Mountains Aug. 19 only to come 10 yards from a full-grown black bear.
After running from the bear for about 40 minutes, the two made it to their car, half-blind, out of breath and White shoeless, only to have left the keys in the backpack that was dropped at the beginning of the chase.
CBC News : Wildlife officials in Canmore, Alta., say fewer bear sightings in the past week mean their efforts have been paying off.
Several residents had reported seeing grizzly bears in town in recent weeks.
Since then, officers have been cutting down berry bushes in the area and have set several traps.
"We're going to be continuing that control work in the next week or so," said Darcy Whiteside, of the province's Sustainable Resource Development department.
Rob Chaney, The Missoulian : Wolves and bears don't behave well in courtrooms.
But the two big predators are likely to spend the next 18 months there as their advocates and enemies try to untangle them from the federal Endangered Species Act.
Last week, Montana wildlife managers decided to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy's Aug. 5 decision placing the gray wolf back under federal protection. Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Missoula appealed another Molloy ruling that prevented state management of Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bears.
David Fleshler, The Sun Sentinel : The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has drafted a bear management plan that attempts to grapple with all the issues raised by the resurgence of a species that can reach 600 pounds and has a taste for garbage.
The plan calls for setting up local resident groups to work out bear issues; reducing those killed on roads; establishing wilderness corridors to reconnect shrinking, genetically isolated bear populations along the Gulf coast with larger ones inland; and — most controversially — considering whether Florida should reopen bear hunting, banned in 1994.
Martha Perkins - Bowen Island Undercurrent: Conservation officer Simon Gravel confirms that there are at least two bears on Bowen. One has an ear tag, the other doesn’t, and there were two bear sightings five minutes apart in different neighbourhoods.
There are still plans to trap and translocate at least one of the bears because it’s become more comfortable with humans. Conservation officers are also often on the island trying to predict where the bear(s) will be, which makes the public’s co-operation essential. Please call 1-877-952-7277 every time you see a bear so they can track their movements. However, the municipality and RCMP do not need to be contacted unless there is a perceived threat or danger.
KYLE HOPKINS, Anchorage Daily News : A shotgun round fired by Seward police to kill a black bear Thursday night pierced the animal, ricocheted and hit a bystander in the abdomen, police say.
The bear died.
The person? Merely bruised, City Manager Phillip Oates said Friday. "It didn't even penetrate the skin. ... We're very lucky in that case."
David Burke, Whistler Question : Police and conservation officers are investigating an incident involving the death of a bear at the hands of a Pemberton resident who admitted shooting it with a crossbow within municipal boundaries.
Police were called to a home on Dogwood Street in the Pemberton Benchlands on Saturday (Aug. 21) at around 9 p.m., Whistler RCMP Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair said. A resident had heard a “strange cry” and then spotted a dead bear in her backyard, he said.
Michael Allen, Piquenewsmagazine : He glides with purpose striding smoothly from one edge of the ski trail to the other. His pace is faster than usual - less food more travel. His long neck, like a reversed rudder, angles through the metre-high foliage, eyes alert to colour. With no obvious effort he quickly nibbles a few berries, floppy lips and a protruding tongue finishing one stem while instantly rebounding to an adjacent stem for more. Nothing there. Keep going... keep looking.
He pushes away from the patch and plows through a cluster of regenerating mountain hemlock conifers. Letting the tips brush his underside, he signs his presence for the day.
WCVB News Boston: N. Conway Man Says He Startled Bear When He Threw Trash In Bin
NORTH CONWAY, N.H. -- A North Conway man needed 16 stitches after an encounter with a Dumpster-diving black bear during the weekend.
Jeff Allard said he was taking out the trash at his apartment complex Sunday night and didn't notice a bear rummaging inside the trash bin. Allard said he tossed his trash into the bin, startling the bear.
Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal: EDMONTON - Of all the places to meet a celebrity, the backwoods of Sweden might seem to be among the least likely.
That's what Gordon Stenhouse thought when he travelled to the Scandinavian wilderness in April to conduct research on grizzly bears.
One day, on a field trip, Stenhouse's camp received a surprise visitor. The new arrival did not have brown fur, a long snout and dark eyes, but instead came with blond hair, blue eyes and a face recognizable from countless broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada.
MEG KINNARD, The Associated Press : COLUMBIA, S.C. — A declawed, defanged bear is chained to a stake as hunting dogs bark and snap, trying to force the bear to stand on its hind legs. The training exercise called bear baying is intended to make the bears easier to shoot in the wild and it's only allowed in South Carolina.
Armed with new undercover video of four such events, the Humane Society of the United States is pressuring state officials to explicitly outlaw the practice, which the organization says is effectively banned in every other state. Animal rights advocates say it's cruel to the nearly defenseless bears and harms them psychologically.
The Billings Gazette Staff: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed an appeal earlier this month to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the relisting of the estimated 600 grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
“The Yellowstone grizzly population is increasing at 4 to 7 percent per year and is recovered and the agencies are committed to spending more than $3 million per year to maintain this healthy, recovered population,” said Chris Servheen, Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, in a statement.
The Billings Gazette: BUTTE — Charges are pending against a security officer with the ritzy Yellowstone Club who allegedly killed a black bear sow, that had at least two cubs, earlier this month.
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks plans to cite Shane Barstad with one count of taking a bear out of season, said Pat Flowers, the agency’s Region 3 supervisor.
Flowers said the agency mailed the charge to the Madison County courthouse on Friday. An employee in Madison County justice court said the charge hadn’t yet arrived, but would likely be filed early next week.
KELLY METZ, The Morning Journal: COLUMBIA TOWNSHIP — The 8-year-old 350-pound black bear, named Iroquois, responsible for the death of 24-year-old Brent Kandra, was put down yesterday at the request of the Kandra family, but owner Sam Mazzola said he didn’t think killing the bear is what Kandra would have wanted.
Mazzola, 48, 9978 N. Marks Road, was helping Kandra feed the bear Thursday night when the bear “swiped” at Kandra, severely injuring him, Mazzola said. According to The Lorain County Sheriff’s Office, Mazzola had to use a fire extinguisher to get the bear back into its cage and to stop charging at Kandra. Kandra died at 1:30 a.m. Friday at Cleveland MetroHealth Medical Center from sharp and blunt force traumas consistent to a bear attack, according to Powell Ceasar, of the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office.
MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press: Yellowstone's grizzlies are going to be particularly hungry this fall, and that means more dangerous meetings with humans in a year that is already the area's deadliest on record.
Scientists report that a favorite food of many bears, nuts from whitebark pine cones, is scarce. So as grizzlies look to put on some major pounds in preparation for the long winter ahead, scientists say, they will be looking for another source of protein — meat — and running into trouble along the way.
Justin Brisbane, The Calgary Herald: Three bears spotted in Peaks of Grassi
A spate of grizzly bear activity in a Canmore neighbourhood has wildlife officials warning residents to bear-proof their homes.
Grizzly bears have been spotted mere metres from houses, eating buffalo berries, dogwood and other food in yards adjacent to the Peaks of Grassi community, a wildlife corridor.
Some berry-laden bushes -- prime bear food -- are growing directly behind and in between homes in the neighbourhood.
MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian missoulian.com : WHITEFISH - Forget Capistrano's swallows. Pay no attention to those salmon returning home from the ocean. Monarch butterflies? Yeah, right.
When it comes to the mystery of migration, those critters have got nothing on a pair of Montana grizzly bears born and raised north of Whitefish.
Wayne Kasworm, a bear biologist working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, penned the bears in big metal traps, carted them across whole mountain ranges and dropped them off deep in a far-flung wilderness.
The Whistler Question : Whistler RCMP officers chased away a bear that ripped into a tent at Riverside Campground on the weekend.
RCMP Sgt. Shawn LeMay said Conservation Officer Dave Jevons was dealing with an unrelated situation in Creekside when he phoned police on Saturday (Aug. 14) at around 8 p.m. to ask for assistance in dealing with the Riverside situation.
Andrea Klassen - Nelson Star: A Kaslo-based wildlife biologist is asking the B.C. government to look at some new data when it decides whether it will approve the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort.
In the works for nearly two decades, the $45 million ski resort development would be built in the Jumbo Valley in the Purcell Mountains. The province is currently deciding whether to create a resort municipality at the proposed development site.
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