Officials Confirm They Got Killer Bear

(CBS/AP)  The bear tracked down and killed by wildlife officers and hounds Monday was the one that dragged an 11-year-old boy from his family's tent in the Utah wilderness and killed him, officials said after an examination of its remains.

Authorities also said the bear, weighing as much as 300 pounds, probably was the same one who had been harassing other campers earlier in the weekend.

The dead boy's grandfather blamed federal foresters Tuesday for not warning about the earlier complaints.

"We're hoping that the Forest Service will do a better job protecting campers. It's been like a surreal nightmare," Eldon Ives told reporters at a news conference on his front lawn.

"The violent way he was taken is a sorrow that will never heal," Ives said.

Katie Baker of CBS station KUTV reports the first complaint about an "aggressive bear" was received Saturday night. Another was made Sunday, harassing another group of campers in the same spot before dawn Sunday. Kurt Francom said his son, Jake, was kicked in the head through a tent wall.

"It could have been my boy," said Francom, a school custodian.

"It hit me right in the face twice, and I raised my head up and it hit the side of the tent and smacked my head back down in," Jake Francom told KUTV.

Wildlife officers gave chase with more than two dozen dogs after the Sunday morning incident, but didn't catch the bear.

Sam Ives, the boy who died, his mother, stepfather and a 6-year-old brother were sleeping in a large tent Sunday night in American Fork Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, when the stepfather heard the boy scream "something's dragging me."

The boy and his sleeping bag were gone. The cut in the nylon tent was so clean, his family first believed the boy had been abducted, U.S Forest Service officers said.

Without a flashlight, the stepfather searched frantically for Sam and then drove a mile down a dirt road to a developed campground.

"He was pounding on my trailer door. He said somebody cut his tent and took his son," said John Sheely, host of the Timpooneke campground, who alerted authorities by driving down the canyon to a pay phone.

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[ecuadoriana]

"What do you think that killing the bear will do? Send a message to the other bears that killing a child is wrong???" Posted by sjw1253 at 03:12 PM : Jun 19, 2007

Thank you, sjw1253.

We have gotten so out of whack with the earth that we're all now whacked.

The amount of insanity in the world is in direct proportion to how far we've removed ourselves from the earth. We don't live with it or in it- we try to dominate, control & destroy it. We are like the spoiled kid who gets a new bicycle as a gift & then promptly leaves it in the driveway to get rained on & run over. Then we act like we deserve to get another.

According to the god/bible people this precious gift of the earth (which includes ALL of its inhabitants not only humans) was created by god & we were created of it (the whole Adam from clay story). So if that's the case why is everyone so quick to destroy god's gift?! Why do we treat the source of our creation with such distain, hatred & disrespect? We convince ourselves to live in fear & to hate our life source- which leads directly to hating ourselves.

If everyone wants to start thumping on the bible they should first look at how they treat the earth & ask "What if god decided to take it all back because I didn't take care of it?"

I'm a wiccan/vegan freak & humble for it.

PS to bogusbones: your name says it all.

[agnim]

Did the bear ate any of the boy?

[my2centss]

Snakes and bears? No comparison, besides I bet they checked their tent for snakes, not too much checking you can do for bears.

[decentiq]

Thank you THGDRIVER, I was starting to wonder if I was the only one with any common since. I like to golf and some of the courses I play at have warning signs about rattlesnakes. I don't just ignore them because I am at a golf course and the snake should know not to bite me. I just stay out of that area and if I do go into that area, golf course or not, I know I might get bit. By the way I feel bad for the kid and his family, I just wish it did not happen.

[decentiq]

Most poeple know where the areas are that are considered to be wild without a line being drawn. If this family was led to believe that they were safe because they were in a park (even though there are warning signs everywhere about bears), but they were not, then maybe the park rangers or whomever runs that park needs to explain why and how this could have happend. Either way, I don't think bears care if we call it a park or the wild, it is still an area with oppurtunity for them to find food and they will continue to hunt in the park or in the wild until they find it.

[my2centss]

Who goes camping without a flashlight and a gun? Might have turned out a bit better.

[hoffmom]

Once upon a time it was ALL wilderness and the animals were ALL untamed. Unless you propose painting a big red line on the ground demarcating the border between "civilization" and "wilderness" and saying that anyone who crosses it, human or animal, "gets what's coming to them," I'm not sure what your solution is.

Once a bear goes rogue, it continues to be a threat. Most likely, the bear ended up with the tendency because of contact with humans; after all, this was a campground, not a vast, untamed wilderness. He would've continued to come back, and even if they went so far as to close the park, he would've gone looking for another one- that's what rogue bears do. Geez, would someone please watch the Discovery Channel? Like I said, some people here need to actually get in touch with the nature they profess to love so much.

[jn122736]

Interesting comments:

Most portray the bear as the victim and the child and/or his parents as the culprits.
Most of these complain that the campers were intruding into the bear%u2019s domain.

The world is filled with hypocrisy.

We would have to kill off at least 250 million people to restore the %u201Cdomain%u201D of all the animals that %u201Cowned%u201D the country before the white man came.

One could just as well say that everyone living in the plains states should pickup and leave so the millions of buffalo (American Bison) who %u201Cown%u201D that land can return.

If wild animals aren%u2019t controlled,-- and that includes killing individual Bears, mountain lions, et al that are proven man killers,--- they would definitely intrude into new hunting grounds (suburbs and towns).

If such a decision to reduce the human population in America by 250 million were to be reached by the %u201Cpowers that be%u201D I wonder how many of these posters would volunteer to be among the vanquished? Or would they quickly change their minds and say, kill the animals (bears)?
What do you think?

[decentiq]

This was a wild bear living in an area of untamed animals. If you go into an environment where they live you are taking a risk because they do not know right from wrong. If you think that you should be able to go into the wild and not be bothered by wild animals because you are dominant to them, then I guess you should just kill them all, instead of just that one.

[hoffmom]

I keep hearing that the wild outdoors is "their" (meaning the animals') territory, and that when "we" wander from "our" territory we're "asking for it." WHAT? Last I knew, we ALL came from the wilderness, and "civilization" arose from it. When mankind originally dwelt in the wilderness,they had no qualms with removing a man-eater from their locale.
Do those "on the bear's side" also think that we should stay in the cities? What a great way to teach our children the value of nature!
We can and should respect the creatures with whom we share our planet. But I find it perfectly idiotic to assert that the humans were "invaders," and didn't have a "right" to be there. As far as I know, no cities sprang up on their own as the "natural" habitat for humans. The wilderness is as much OUR territory as it is THEIRS and maybe we'd respect it more if we felt it belonged to us all. And since does, every creature is entitled to protect itself.
But that's NOT what the bear was doing when it dragged a boy from his tent and mauled him to death in the night. That is a rogue bear who will repeat the offense, EVEN IF RELOCATED. It's stupid to say "he was just doing what was natural." No he wasn't. Wild bears naturally avoid people. This bear was behaving unnaturally, and would've continued to do so. Some of these people who feel so passionately for the life of the bear really need to get in touch with nature themselves.