Park County teen takes action against invading bear

[MED]

Well, I'll say it. I'm skeptical the bear needed to be shot by this girl. Not that I think what she did was necessarily wrong, but it probably wasn't necessary. From her own account she basically ambushed the bear as it left the garage. I've seen lots of bears around here and the only thing they want to do when a person shows up is get away. My guess is the bear would've left quickly once it knew she was there and that's what it was trying to do. Unfortunately, bears aren't able to use doors to get in and out of confined spaces as easily as people are. They tend to panic when trapped inside and make a lot of noise and commotion while trying to figure out how to get out. It happens all the time and people confuse that with aggression.

I've had a sow and her two cubs in my 60'x60' dog run. This bear didn't want to hurt anyone even though my Terriers were chasing her/being chased by her, around the yard. All she wanted to do was get her cubs and get the hell out. I stood at the top of the deck and watched the entire show and never felt the need to get a gun and shoot the bear. Actually, it never crossed my mind. I called my dogs back into the house (probably would've just been easier to call the bear into the house), the bear sniffed around to make sure the coast was clear, rounded up her cubs and left.

And, if you're gonna live in bear territory, you need to make sure you know how to store food...of all types. Most bears die because PEOPLE are STUPID. People have the ability to reason and should take the very easy steps to keep bears away by not attracting them with improperly stored food. Bears don't have that reasoning ability. All they know is they smell food and they do what bears do to get to it. Black bears are generally extremely timid and will go to great lengths to avoid conflict with humans.

Black bears have killed less than 65 people since 1900. Your chances of being attacked by a black bear under any circumstance, much less being killed by a black bear, are statistically about as close to 0 as you can get.

So I'm not gonna jump on the "she's a hero" bandwagon. My opinion is these people need to learn how to live in bear territory.

I agree for the most part, but they are not always timid. My neighbor was charged by one, but her dogs came to her aid. We have one in our area who is a lot more aggressive. I've cleared deer carcasses that were bear kills and my neighbor had one of his Lamas taken down. They can be unpredictable in the spring when they are emerging. I find that people are a little too relaxed about it; they are still a predator and they can be dangerous. However, dogs pretty much solve bear problems; it sounds like the kid should have just let the dogs do their job.