Written By - Tom Remington - 06/19/2007
Link to Original Article here

Eleven year old Samuel Evan Ives of Pleasant Grove, Utah was camping with his family in American Fork Canyon. On Sunday night a bear grabbed Samuel from his tent, still in his sleeping bag and dragged him off screaming into the woods and was killed. Just before noon on Monday, the bear was tracked down and killed.

This is a tragic event and my thoughts and prayers are with the family in their difficult time of dealing with such an event. It has to be a horrible experience.

I have said it before that the way our park officials and media portray bears in the wild is too lackadaisical. There's still many questions to get answered and details to collect but let's take a look at some of the things that happened that could have prevented this tragedy.

First of all, Friday night in the same primitive campground, a bear attacked a man inside his tent, slashing at his head and eventually biting through the tent and taking a chunk out of his pillow. Fortunately for the man, he had moved.

Officials were notified and it appears that what was done in response to the attack was to notify as many campers as they could find that possibly a bear had been seen in the area. They failed to close the area down.

The other issue that needs attention is how officials and media portray bears in the wild. Officials are always downplaying the dangers of bears saying it is very rare for bears to kill humans. This is true but it does happen. There have been 49 fatal attacks by bears on humans, with 29 of those fatalities occurring since 1990. Isn't that reason enough to change the approach in educating the public about bears and wildlife?

Read what one report in the Salt Lake Tribune said:

Wildlife officials were aware of bear problems in the area earlier, according to Scott Root, a state conservation outreach manager. He said an incident near the same campground occurred at dawn Sunday when a camper reported a bear take a swipe at him inside a tent. The camper was struck on the head, but not injured. Hunters were dispatched then, too, but did not find the animal.
Root stressed that the bear was likely not looking to make a human being his prey, but was probably attracted by the smell of food.
"He wasn't trying to get a kid; he probably smelled something" in the tent, on the boy's sleeping bag, or on the boy himself, Root said.

These kinds of statements need amending. As human/bear encounters increase nationwide, we hear of more incidents, most of which are not fatal but still they are attacks. To downplay that a bear doesn't consider a human being food is irresponsible. We have to ask what is driving these statements from park officials? Is it fear of losing revenue?

The Deseret News tells of how officials handled the earlier attack of a bear on a camper.

When they learned of the bear-related fatality about 2 a.m., they sent rangers to sweep campgrounds in the area. The area was sparsely populated with campers, but the rangers told them about the mauling and asked them to leave, said Loyal Clark, Uinta National Forest spokeswoman.
The division also posts signs at campgrounds and trailheads to notify campers and hikers about bears in the area and necessary precautions.
"We're doing everything we can to make people bear-aware," Karpowitz said. "It's hard to plan for an event that's never ever happened in the state of Utah."

Official's methods used to educate people of the potential dangers involving any wildlife has to change. Instead of repeated statements that bears are afraid of humans and don't consider them food, it would be prudent to change that to say that it does happen.

A better approach will help although as the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink", will show that not all people will heed the advice and take all necessary precautions.

If a bear is going to snatch someone from a tent, there is probably not a lot that anyone could do but if campers are aware of the real dangers, they may prepare differently and outcomes may be altered.

People need to know that any animal can potentially be dangerous, even your pet dog or cat. Under the right circumstances, an animal will react accordingly. After all, they are animals that act on instinct.

There is hope, however and something that we all should pay attention to. At least one officer involved in the case, had the bravery to make a statement that is rarely heard in such investigations.

"It does not appear that the very minimal amount of food in the campsite had anything to do with the bear attack," Utah County Sheriff's Lt. Darren Gilbert said.

If this is true, then we need to understand that bears will attack people in campsites whether these is food present or not.

Tom Remington