Greater than six months after the demise of an aged lady, California officers are lastly shedding some gentle on what they are saying is the primary confirmed deadly black bear assault in state historical past. The November assault happened in Downieville and concerned 71-year-old Patrice Miller, who was mauled to demise in her own residence, in keeping with the California Division of Fish and Wildlife. The bear then consumed the sufferer, which finally led to confusion round how the lady had died. For months officers thought the lady might have died of pure causes as an alternative of accidents sustained through the assault.
Though the bear was finally trapped and euthanized, new particulars reveal a sample of miscommunication and delay between native regulation enforcement and state wildlife officers. For instance, it was not instantly clear that CDFW had euthanized the right bear till late Could, regardless that a bear was euthanized in November. The sheriff additionally pointed to a sequence of “bureaucratic issues” that he mentioned prevented regulation enforcement officers from coping with the killer bear as quickly as doable.
“Upon exhibiting up, [deputies] instantly noticed proof of bear intrusion into the home. The door was damaged. There was bear scat on the porch,” Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher informed KCRA Information on Wednesday, referring to the welfare examine at Miller’s dwelling that deputies responded to on Nov. 8. By that time, he defined, Miller hadn’t been seen in a number of days.
“It appeared that the bear had in all probability been there a number of days and had been feeding on the stays,” Fisher mentioned.
The Sierra County coroner’s preliminary report was that Miller had been mauled posthumously, in keeping with the Mountain Messenger. The SCSO’s press launch on the time, which was shared to Fb on Nov. 14, mentioned officers believed that Miller was already lifeless when the bear was drawn to her home “by the scent or different components.”
Inside days of when the assault occurred, nonetheless, Fisher mentioned his workplace was already getting calls a couple of bear returning to Miller’s home, which is positioned within the coronary heart of Downieville, a small mountain city of fewer than 300 folks. He had additionally discovered that Miller had been coping with an aggressive black bear for a while.
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“Bears had been always attempting to get in by way of damaged home windows, and [Miller] had bodily hit one to maintain it from coming into the home,” Fisher mentioned of a sheriff’s report that was filed after the assault, and which included testimony from Miller’s daughter. “A bear her mom named ‘massive bastard’ was a frequent customer to the residence.”
Fisher added that Miller’s home “had a number of bear attractants,” together with cat meals, which she’d been placing out on her entrance porch. This would possibly assist clarify why officers had been hesitant to rule the 71-year-old lady’s demise as the results of a bear assault — it appeared constant {that a} human-conditioned bear merely discovered her physique. However Fisher mentioned this hesitation, together with different company crimson tape, additionally induced pointless delays. When he filed a request with CDFW to entice and euthanize the bear, they informed him the request needed to come from a tenant or property proprietor.
“I needed to relay a number of occasions that [the tenant] was deceased and had been eaten by a bear,” mentioned Fisher. When he discovered Miller had been renting, he reached out to the landowner to safe a depredation allow. A bear was then trapped on the property, however Fisher mentioned this “started a complete second drawn-out concern,” as officers initially thought they caught the fallacious bear (a feminine as an alternative of a male) and needed to launch it.
“I informed the trapper I used to be seizing his entice and seizing the bear, and we positioned a padlock on the bear entice,” Fisher mentioned. “Finally, the biologist obtained right here and tranquilized the bear. As soon as the bear was asleep, we opened up the cage, and it was a male bear.”
That bear was euthanized. It wasn’t till months later that an post-mortem confirmed that Miller was mauled to demise by a bear. Fisher mentioned this new data led to a different concern, as he began to fret in the event that they’d killed the fitting bear again in November. CDFW lastly allayed these issues on Could 22, notifying Fisher of DNA outcomes exhibiting that the euthanized bear was the identical one which killed and ate Miller.
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Black bears are the commonest bear species in North America, which is dwelling to roughly 600,000 of them. Conflicts between black bears and human are pretty frequent, particularly in locations like Lake Tahoe the place many bears have develop into habituated to folks and search out human meals. Deadly assaults on people are uncommon, nonetheless, and most of those conflicts contain stolen meals or broken property, as black bears usually tend to run away from an individual than maul them.
California is a working example. Wildlife officers there recorded greater than 1,500 bear-human conflicts per 12 months in 2021 and 2022, in keeping with CDFW’s most up-to-date Black Bear Conservation Plan, however they hadn’t ever recorded a deadly black bear assault till the Downieville incident in November.
“It’s an enormous deal,” CDFW spokesperson Pete Gonzalez informed reporters . “That doesn’t occur in California.”
