A man’s body was found after authorities were called to a campsite – days later the bear was identified with as the same beast which attacked the 60-year old on Sunday 5 October.
A black bear is believed to have attacked and killed a 60-year-old father on an Arkansas campsite, with evidence of a struggle found.
Officials said they found drag marks leading from the camp into the woods, suggesting some gruesome last moments for the Missouri man on Sunday 5 October.
The body of the victim was found near Sam’s Throne Campground in the Ozarks. Sheriff Glenn Wheeler of Newton County said on Friday that the cause of death was officially ruled an “animal mauling”, as per The New York Times. The Sheriff said the victims’ wounds were “consistent with those expected from a large carnivore attack.”
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On Sunday, a black bear was caught on camera in the campground area just a few yards from where the victim was attacked. It matched images taken of the bear from the victim and Sheriff Wheeler said “there was an extremely high probability it was the same bear.”
The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission agreed with the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in saying the bear appeared to be the same.
The animal was taken to Little Rock so officials could perform a necropsy and other tests on the bear to see if DNA samples match the victim, the sheriff added. He said that bear was a young male bear “that was likely weaned and kicked off its mother this year.”
The man, who remains unnamed, was first found when the sheriff’s office responded to a caller who said their father was at the site and had not checked in for a few days.
the campground on Thursday after it received a call to check on a camper. The caller said that their father was at the site, and that he had not checked in for a few days.
The man’s family told investigators that after he sent a photo of a bear from the camp on Tuesday morning they had not heard from him.
In Franklin County,about 90 miles west, a man who was attacked last month by a died of injuries sustained in the black bear encounter. Vernon Patton, 72, was working on a tractor on the side of a road when he was approached by the bear, witnesses said.
The American black bear, which is the smallest bear species in the United States and the most common bear found in North America, is the only bear species found in Arkansas, according to the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
The commission estimates that there are more than 5,000 bears in the state. Bear hunting season began in Newton County on Sept. 17.
The black bear is the least aggressive bear species, according to the World Animal Foundation, and it attacks humans only when startled or in self-defense.
It said that the 750,000 black bears in North America kill, on average, less than one person per year.