BornToHuntAndFish
Senior Member
You've probably heard about this in the news, but in case you have not . . .
I haven't seen this story on the forum yet, so let's go ahead & post it. What a terrible bear encounter, but glad fatal attacks are uncommonly rare. We better heed the warnings & carefully watch our six & be well prepared with self defense in bear country.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...cle_f40ecce6-7b15-11df-aed5-001cc4c03286.html
Researchers in the area had trapped and released a bear earlier in the day
Grizzly kills botanist in attack near Yellowstone park
Friday, June 18, 2010
CODY — Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal mauling by a grizzly bear Thursday of a Shoshone National Forest cabin owner. The incident occurred at a site where a bear had been captured and released earlier that day.
Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was reported missing to a member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team who had been conducting research in the Kitty Creek drainage, about seven miles east of Yellowstone National Park.
Researchers had earlier trapped and released an adult male grizzly in the area, according to information released by Park County Sheriff Scott Steward.
A longtime friend and professional colleague said Evert was aware that researchers had been trying for several days to trap a bear in the area, and that friends and family members were unsure why he had hiked into the capture site despite knowing the risks.
“None of us understand it and apparently never will,” said retired ecologist Chuck Neal, author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”
Neal said he often hiked the woods around Yellowstone with Evert, a botanist, sharing a common interest in researching the region’s plants and animals.
Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted at Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.
Neal said bear researchers were returning from the capture site when they were told by Evert’s wife, Yolanda, that he was missing.
A study team member went back to the capture site and found Evert’s body. Wardens with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and a sheriff’s deputy responded at 8:30 p.m. to the remote location, about two miles from Highway 14-16-20.
Members of Park County Search and Rescue recovered Evert’s body around midnight, with assistance from Game and Fish workers, who provided armed security, Steward said in a written statement released Friday afternoon.
Steward said that Evert, who was not armed and was not carrying bear spray, apparently wandered into the capture site sometime after the bear had been released.
Neal said he did not know how researchers returning from the site failed to cross paths with Evert while he was hiking in, unless the botanist had left the trail at some point.
Bear not relocated
The bear had not been captured before Thursday, and had not been relocated from another area, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Researchers drew blood from the captured bear and fitted it with a radio collar before releasing it, Servheen said, but it has not yet been determined whether the previously captured bear was the same one that killed Evert.
Servheen said that wildlife officials will try to compare any DNA left by the attacking bear, most likely in its saliva, with blood drawn from the captured bear.
It is uncertain whether that difficult process of analysis will prove possible, he said.
Steward said that the U.S. Forest Service had issued a closure order for the Kitty Creek drainage and that federal wildlife and law enforcement agents are searching for the bear using electronic tracking equipment.
Servheen initially said Friday morning that wildlife officials would not try to trap the bear again. But he said later that efforts were being made to recapture it.
“If we get a chance to trap it, we will trap it,” he said.
He said that the investigation of the mauling is in its early stages, and that authorities will work to try and re-create what happened.
If it is determined that the bear trapped Thursday is the one that killed Evert, federal wildlife officials will decide the bear’s fate, he said.
“We’ll try to make a decision as to whether the actions of the bear were natural aggression,” Servheen said.
“We will try to make that decision based on what we know after we put all the facts together,” he said, adding that re-creating an attack without any witnesses can prove difficult.
Some cabin owners have said they were unaware of research work being done in the area, and questioned whether wildlife and land management agencies were communicating effectively with the public about such activities. The press is not routinely notified of study team field work.
Servheen said that interagency partners including the Wyoming Game and Fish and Shoshone National Forest personnel are aware of researchers’ work in the area, and that signs are posted in areas where bears are being captured.
He said he was unaware of what other public notifications, if any, were routinely made about bear capture efforts.
“The people doing this are highly trained professionals who follow very detailed protocols. One of the most important protocols is public safety,” he said.
“We want to make sure people don’t walk into these places, so they place signs lower down on the trail” warning people to avoid the area, he said.
Servheen said “it would be impossible to enter this area” without noticing warning signs.
Close friends
Neal said Evert and his wife spent summers each year for the last three decades at their Kitty Creek cabin, and that they were close family friends.
“We walked many miles and spent many days together,” he said.
Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, and he also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming, Neal said.
Evert had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps, Neal said.
“It’s a magnificent book. It weighs about 5 pounds,” he said.
“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said.
“He just turned 70 this spring, but he was still very active and very fit,” Neal said.
Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”
Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the last week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, Neal said.
Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.
Although bear encounters around Yellowstone are not uncommon, including ones that result in serious injuries to people, fatal bear attacks are relatively rare.
Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”
“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” he said.
Neal said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.
AND
http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...cle_f45a84f8-7bbd-11df-9a95-001cc4c002e0.html
Bear involved in fatal attack near Yellowstone killed as public safety precaution
DNA tests match dead bear to mauling
Saturday, June 19, 2010
CODY — A lab analysis has confirmed that a bear shot dead early Saturday morning near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park is the one that fatally mauled a man Thursday afternoon in the same area.
The adult male grizzly bear had been snared and tranquilized by federal researchers Thursday morning and fitted with a radio collar before being released.
Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was found dead at the capture site Thursday after the bear was released. Evert ignored warning signs posted advising hikers to avoid the area because of the likelihood of a dangerous bear encounter.
Wildlife officials used a helicopter and radio tracking gear to locate and shoot the bear Saturday morning, after making unsuccessful attempts Friday to catch it.
Rapid DNA testing of genetic material from the bear that was left on the victim matched blood drawn from the bear when it was tranquilized Thursday, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Servheen said he decided late Friday to authorize killing the bear if it could not be captured, because experts could not definitively determine whether the animal’s actions were natural and defensive or aberrant and unusually aggressive.
“We regret the whole idea of having to remove a bear, but we just wanted to be sure. I stand by that decision to remove him,” Servheen said.
Servheen said the bear was initially near a road where it might have been captured, but it later began moving deeper into the wilderness, where it could later shed its radio collar and become exceptionally difficult to locate.
Servheen said he and other agency officials agreed that “the best thing to do for the safety of the public is to remove the bear.”
The U.S. Forest Service is now expected to reopen the Kitty Creek area, about seven miles east of Yellowstone, where the attack occurred. The area had been closed as a public safety precaution until it could be determined that the bear involved in the mauling was either not a threat or dead.
Friends and wildlife officials have said that Evert, a botanist who owned a cabin at Kitty Creek, was well aware of the risks of entering the capture area, but that he was curious about work being done there, and ignored verbal and posted warnings.
The incident is the first fatal mauling by a grizzly bear in the area in 25 years, and the first such fatal attack to take place at a site where researchers had recently trapped and released a bear.
Servheen said the U.S. Geological Survey crew from Bozeman that had been trapping bears in the area has left. The bear that killed Evert was the last one they had sought to capture.
Authorities will later complete a comprehensive incident report, but an initial review indicates that there were no obvious signs that researchers failed to follow standard trapping protocols, Servheen said.
“We try to do everything we can to minimize the risks. But we can’t protect ourselves against people that ignore every warning we give, and we can’t protect people against themselves,” he said.
“The whole thing is regrettable; just one tragedy followed by another,” Servheen said.
Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago. He also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming.
He had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps.
Evert and his wife, Yolanda, had spent summers at their Kitty Creek cabin for the past 30 years, according to family friend and professional colleague Chuck Neal, a retired ecologist and author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”
“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said of the book.
Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”
Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted near Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.
Evert called his daughter early Thursday and described to her the route he planned to take from his cabin to the capture site, and it “was kind of his favorite route for light hiking,” but it did not follow the main trail, Neal said.
Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the past week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, he said.
Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.
Evert was not armed and was not carrying bear spray when he was attacked, according to information released by the Park County Sheriff’s Office.
“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” Neal said.
He said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.
Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”
“He was an extraordinary man who made a very ordinary mistake,” Neal said.
I haven't seen this story on the forum yet, so let's go ahead & post it. What a terrible bear encounter, but glad fatal attacks are uncommonly rare. We better heed the warnings & carefully watch our six & be well prepared with self defense in bear country.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...cle_f40ecce6-7b15-11df-aed5-001cc4c03286.html
Researchers in the area had trapped and released a bear earlier in the day
Grizzly kills botanist in attack near Yellowstone park
Friday, June 18, 2010
CODY — Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal mauling by a grizzly bear Thursday of a Shoshone National Forest cabin owner. The incident occurred at a site where a bear had been captured and released earlier that day.
Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was reported missing to a member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team who had been conducting research in the Kitty Creek drainage, about seven miles east of Yellowstone National Park.
Researchers had earlier trapped and released an adult male grizzly in the area, according to information released by Park County Sheriff Scott Steward.
A longtime friend and professional colleague said Evert was aware that researchers had been trying for several days to trap a bear in the area, and that friends and family members were unsure why he had hiked into the capture site despite knowing the risks.
“None of us understand it and apparently never will,” said retired ecologist Chuck Neal, author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”
Neal said he often hiked the woods around Yellowstone with Evert, a botanist, sharing a common interest in researching the region’s plants and animals.
Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted at Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.
Neal said bear researchers were returning from the capture site when they were told by Evert’s wife, Yolanda, that he was missing.
A study team member went back to the capture site and found Evert’s body. Wardens with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and a sheriff’s deputy responded at 8:30 p.m. to the remote location, about two miles from Highway 14-16-20.
Members of Park County Search and Rescue recovered Evert’s body around midnight, with assistance from Game and Fish workers, who provided armed security, Steward said in a written statement released Friday afternoon.
Steward said that Evert, who was not armed and was not carrying bear spray, apparently wandered into the capture site sometime after the bear had been released.
Neal said he did not know how researchers returning from the site failed to cross paths with Evert while he was hiking in, unless the botanist had left the trail at some point.
Bear not relocated
The bear had not been captured before Thursday, and had not been relocated from another area, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Researchers drew blood from the captured bear and fitted it with a radio collar before releasing it, Servheen said, but it has not yet been determined whether the previously captured bear was the same one that killed Evert.
Servheen said that wildlife officials will try to compare any DNA left by the attacking bear, most likely in its saliva, with blood drawn from the captured bear.
It is uncertain whether that difficult process of analysis will prove possible, he said.
Steward said that the U.S. Forest Service had issued a closure order for the Kitty Creek drainage and that federal wildlife and law enforcement agents are searching for the bear using electronic tracking equipment.
Servheen initially said Friday morning that wildlife officials would not try to trap the bear again. But he said later that efforts were being made to recapture it.
“If we get a chance to trap it, we will trap it,” he said.
He said that the investigation of the mauling is in its early stages, and that authorities will work to try and re-create what happened.
If it is determined that the bear trapped Thursday is the one that killed Evert, federal wildlife officials will decide the bear’s fate, he said.
“We’ll try to make a decision as to whether the actions of the bear were natural aggression,” Servheen said.
“We will try to make that decision based on what we know after we put all the facts together,” he said, adding that re-creating an attack without any witnesses can prove difficult.
Some cabin owners have said they were unaware of research work being done in the area, and questioned whether wildlife and land management agencies were communicating effectively with the public about such activities. The press is not routinely notified of study team field work.
Servheen said that interagency partners including the Wyoming Game and Fish and Shoshone National Forest personnel are aware of researchers’ work in the area, and that signs are posted in areas where bears are being captured.
He said he was unaware of what other public notifications, if any, were routinely made about bear capture efforts.
“The people doing this are highly trained professionals who follow very detailed protocols. One of the most important protocols is public safety,” he said.
“We want to make sure people don’t walk into these places, so they place signs lower down on the trail” warning people to avoid the area, he said.
Servheen said “it would be impossible to enter this area” without noticing warning signs.
Close friends
Neal said Evert and his wife spent summers each year for the last three decades at their Kitty Creek cabin, and that they were close family friends.
“We walked many miles and spent many days together,” he said.
Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, and he also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming, Neal said.
Evert had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps, Neal said.
“It’s a magnificent book. It weighs about 5 pounds,” he said.
“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said.
“He just turned 70 this spring, but he was still very active and very fit,” Neal said.
Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”
Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the last week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, Neal said.
Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.
Although bear encounters around Yellowstone are not uncommon, including ones that result in serious injuries to people, fatal bear attacks are relatively rare.
Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”
“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” he said.
Neal said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.
AND
http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...cle_f45a84f8-7bbd-11df-9a95-001cc4c002e0.html
Bear involved in fatal attack near Yellowstone killed as public safety precaution
DNA tests match dead bear to mauling
Saturday, June 19, 2010
CODY — A lab analysis has confirmed that a bear shot dead early Saturday morning near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park is the one that fatally mauled a man Thursday afternoon in the same area.
The adult male grizzly bear had been snared and tranquilized by federal researchers Thursday morning and fitted with a radio collar before being released.
Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was found dead at the capture site Thursday after the bear was released. Evert ignored warning signs posted advising hikers to avoid the area because of the likelihood of a dangerous bear encounter.
Wildlife officials used a helicopter and radio tracking gear to locate and shoot the bear Saturday morning, after making unsuccessful attempts Friday to catch it.
Rapid DNA testing of genetic material from the bear that was left on the victim matched blood drawn from the bear when it was tranquilized Thursday, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Servheen said he decided late Friday to authorize killing the bear if it could not be captured, because experts could not definitively determine whether the animal’s actions were natural and defensive or aberrant and unusually aggressive.
“We regret the whole idea of having to remove a bear, but we just wanted to be sure. I stand by that decision to remove him,” Servheen said.
Servheen said the bear was initially near a road where it might have been captured, but it later began moving deeper into the wilderness, where it could later shed its radio collar and become exceptionally difficult to locate.
Servheen said he and other agency officials agreed that “the best thing to do for the safety of the public is to remove the bear.”
The U.S. Forest Service is now expected to reopen the Kitty Creek area, about seven miles east of Yellowstone, where the attack occurred. The area had been closed as a public safety precaution until it could be determined that the bear involved in the mauling was either not a threat or dead.
Friends and wildlife officials have said that Evert, a botanist who owned a cabin at Kitty Creek, was well aware of the risks of entering the capture area, but that he was curious about work being done there, and ignored verbal and posted warnings.
The incident is the first fatal mauling by a grizzly bear in the area in 25 years, and the first such fatal attack to take place at a site where researchers had recently trapped and released a bear.
Servheen said the U.S. Geological Survey crew from Bozeman that had been trapping bears in the area has left. The bear that killed Evert was the last one they had sought to capture.
Authorities will later complete a comprehensive incident report, but an initial review indicates that there were no obvious signs that researchers failed to follow standard trapping protocols, Servheen said.
“We try to do everything we can to minimize the risks. But we can’t protect ourselves against people that ignore every warning we give, and we can’t protect people against themselves,” he said.
“The whole thing is regrettable; just one tragedy followed by another,” Servheen said.
Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago. He also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming.
He had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps.
Evert and his wife, Yolanda, had spent summers at their Kitty Creek cabin for the past 30 years, according to family friend and professional colleague Chuck Neal, a retired ecologist and author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”
“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said of the book.
Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”
Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted near Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.
Evert called his daughter early Thursday and described to her the route he planned to take from his cabin to the capture site, and it “was kind of his favorite route for light hiking,” but it did not follow the main trail, Neal said.
Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the past week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, he said.
Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.
Evert was not armed and was not carrying bear spray when he was attacked, according to information released by the Park County Sheriff’s Office.
“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” Neal said.
He said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.
Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”
“He was an extraordinary man who made a very ordinary mistake,” Neal said.
