Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits.

The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground  near Cooke City , Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest Service campground near Tucson , AZ. She was mauled by a bear that had recently inflicted minor injuries on another girl. Knochel and her family filed a $15 million lawsuit against the State of Arizona (Arizona Game & Fish Department) and the Forest Service.

The Wildlife Management Institute reported, "On May 4, 1999 the State of Arizona settle out of court with the Knochels for $2.5 million. Lawyers for the Knochel family argued that the Arizona Game and Fish Department should have realized that the bear that mauled Anna was dangerous. They charged that the agency should have put it to death or moved it far away, because, according to records, the same bear had attacked a Brownie Girl Scout and inflicted minor injuries. Arizona Game and Fish authorities trapped the bear after the Brownie incident and moved it nine miles away. Within two days, the bear returned to the campground and attacked Ms. Knochel." (Wildlife Management Institute, Outdoor News Bulletin, Vol. 55, No.4, April 13, 2001)

Given that lawsuit, imagine the hue and cry if the grizzly bears that killed Kammer and Evert were released back into the wild and one of them killed another person?

Headlines of "Killer Grizzly Strikes Again!!"