People Upset A Bear Was Killed After Attacking Man
October 3, 2008
An Australian tourist may have gotten in the way of a black bear recently, as crowds of people gathered around to take pictures of the animal rummaging through garbage. The Australian was not hospitalized and his injuries were said to be minor.
The bear it seems had been hanging around for awhile dumpster diving and what not and had become a tourist attraction to those seeking to see a bear. One report said the bear decided it was time to leave the scene and the Australian man was in his path.
In the end, authorities shot and killed the bear and some of the locals are very much up in arms, with one responding to a local newspaper article saying, “These idiots were surrounding a wild animal to take bloody pictures and they got what they deserved - the bear fought back.” Yet, another claimed, “Well this ‘tourist’ managed to get a death sentence pronounced on this bear”.
The odds were heavily stacked against the bear to make it out alive once he became a regular customer of the local garbage cans, unfortunately. There is also no arguing that people don’t act too intelligently when they gather around wild animals in order to get pictures.
The difficulty in taking seriously the reactions of many people is their seeming higher respect and desire for protection of an animal over the well being of a human. It reminds me of a television news report I heard a few years back while vacationing in Florida.
It was a late night incident. A reporter was standing on one of the big bridges that span portions of Tampa Bay. An SUV traveling along the bridge hit one of the cement walls protecting drivers and automobiles from going into the water. The story was a sob story of a dog that got catapulted from the vehicle and landed in the water.
The reporter, a woman, was nearly in tears as she shared the story of this brave dog, being hurled through the air and landing somewhere in the cold waters of Tampa Bay in the darkness of night. Rescuers jumped into the water, while helicopters hovered overhead, shining large, bright search lights to aid the rescuers. Eventually the dog was located and it was determined to be alright.
The reporter then began to sign off from the accident scene, when the news anchor back in the studio asked the condition of the driver, “The driver’s dead body was recovered from the water shortly after rescuers arrived on the scene.”
Tom Remington
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Well, ok. If a dog kills a bear cub when the cub trespassed into the dog’s yard in Jefferson, NJ and the ASPCA wants the dog killed, then why can’t the bear who attacked a human be killed too? Additionally, the owner of the dog has been charged with not having her dog on a leash (even though the her dog was on her own property) and faces the possibility of 6 months in jail an a $2000.00 fine. Now the question becomes if a dog has to be leashed then why doesn’t a bear need to be leashed and who is responsible for letting a dangerous animal like a bear roam loose to attack people? It is totally beyond my imagination that there are some people (the animal lovers/people haters) that would willing trade the life of a child for the life of a bear or any other animal.
Having spent a decade or more in Australia. Time spent 300 miles west of the Black Stump, and up the York Pensulia North Queensland. (Got out before the rainy season could drive me “troppo”) I’m not surprised that an Aussie tourist to the US got himself bitten by a bear.
No Bears in Australia except the Koala, truth be told the Koala in it’s natural environment is NOT the cute and cuddly tourist attractor. It’s teeth and claws are for climbing and eating, but let’s not forget defense!
This guy had no Idea of what he was looking at! Except that it was a bear and he has seen a live one! He didn’t know how to act around Bears.
Much like an American tourist to North East Australia or the Northern Territory whom gets eaten by a Croc. Both are ignorant of the animal behavior and it’s temperament. Outside of a controlled condition (ZOO)
In Australia, at the time I was resident the Crocodile was protected. People were upset by the Loud Mouth “Septic” Yank whom in his or her know-it-all ignorance got eaten because they didn’t know how to act in the croc’s domain and now the Croc. has to be found and destroyed.
The same claim is leveled on American tourists down under.
“Well this ‘tourist’ managed to get a death sentence pronounced on this Crocâ€.
Oh yea, Aussies call us Septics or Septic Tank Yanks because to them we are all full of nothing but “SH-T”
In time I found I was unable to argue that observation. I had to agree.
Every Country has problems with Human Predator encounters. This is a follow up link on the Crocodiles. In the early 70′ the Crock came under Government protection. It’s now 2008:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24431343-5001030,00.html
[...] last week I reported about a tourist to Canada from Australia who was bitten by an angry bear as people gathered around [...]