A day hiker pauses near the spot where a woman tourist was mauled by a black bear in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Sunday, May 21. [AP photo]
Woman mauled by black bear
By Morgan Simmons
in Great Smoky Mountains
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
May 22, 2000
GATLINBURG, Tenn. — The fatal mauling of a woman by a black bear appears to have been unprovoked, but the incident won’t change the park’s bear management policy, officials at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park say. Acting park Superintendent Philip Francis said the victim — Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby, Tenn. — apparently did nothing to incite the attack Sunday afternoon and her day pack, which contained food, was undisturbed. “This is an extremely rare occurrence,” Francis said. “We’ve been studying black bears here in the park for over 30 years without incident. This is our first fatal attack, and maybe the first in the Eastern United States.” Bradley, an elementary school teacher, was accompanied by her former husband, Ralph Hill, 52, also of Cosby. (The two were in the process of reconciling.) Park officials said the two entered the park about noon. About 2˝ miles into the backcountry Hill and Bradley separated and Hill went fishing. A short while later, Hill went back to join Bradley and found her already dead about 40 yards off the footpath. Hovering over Bradley’s body was a 112-pound female bear with a yearling cub weighing about 40 pounds. When Hill tried to run off the bears, the adult female stood her ground and became aggressive. Hill was able to recruit help from about a dozen hikers and campers. For several hours they threw rocks and screamed at the bears, but the bears refused to leave. At 6:05 p.m. park rangers arrived at the scene and killed both bears with their service weapons. Park wildlife biologist Kim DeLozier said the bears have been sent to the University of Tennessee for a necropsy, and park officials are virtually certain the two bears killed were the ones involved in the attack. “We know black bears have preyed on other species in the park, like white-tailed deer,” DeLozier said. “Given our black bear density and number of visitors, there’s always been the potential for this. Maybe that’s something people have underestimated in the past.” DeLozier said 37 fatal black bear attacks have been recorded in the United States. He said Sunday’s fatality was only the second fatal black bear attack in a national park. The other occurred in Yellowstone. Estimates put the park’s black bear population at about 1,800, more than triple the 300 to 500 animals that were estimated to exist when the park began monitoring its bears 30 years ago. DeLozier said the adult female’s small size (112 pounds as opposed to the typical female weight of 125 to 150 pounds) reflects the usual food shortage at this time of the year but does not indicate she was starved. He also said the adult shouldn’t have been overly protective of her cub since it was a yearling and almost old enough to be almost independent. The adult bear had been tagged in 1998 by UT wildlife officials for routine research purposes. DeLozier said the bear had no known nuisance history and was from all indications a truly wild bear. “To our knowledge this was not a rogue or nuisance bear,” DeLozier said. DeLozier said the park on average has to kill one nuisance bear a year; last year the park killed three. He said so far this year there have been few reports of nuisance bear activity. DeLozier said the park will stick to the bear management policy it implemented a decade ago stressing proper food storage by park users and increased monitoring of nuisance bears. “This attack was very bizarre and rare, but in my estimation it’s as safe now to hike in the park as it ever was,” DeLozier said.
Fatal bear attack won’t change
By Morgan Simmons
Smokies park policy
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
May 23, 2000
GATLINBURG, Tenn. — The fatal mauling of a woman by a black bear appears to have been unprovoked, but the incident won’t change the park’s bear management policy, officials at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park say. Acting park Superintendent Philip Francis said the victim — Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby, Tenn. — apparently did nothing to incite the attack Sunday afternoon and her day pack, which contained food, was undisturbed. “This is an extremely rare occurrence,” Francis said. “We’ve been studying black bears here in the park for over 30 years without incident. This is our first fatal attack, and maybe the first in the Eastern United States.” Bradley, an elementary school teacher, was accompanied by her former husband, Ralph Hill, 52, also of Cosby. Park officials said the two entered the park about noon. About 2˝ miles into the backcountry Hill and Bradley separated and Hill went fishing. A short while later, Hill went back to join Bradley and found her already dead about 40 yards off the footpath. Hovering over Bradley’s body was a 112-pound female bear with a yearling cub weighing about 40 pounds. When Hill tried to run off the bears, the adult female stood her ground and became aggressive. Hill was able to recruit help from about a dozen hikers and campers. For several hours they threw rocks and screamed at the bears, but the bears refused to leave. At 6:05 p.m. park rangers arrived at the scene and killed both bears with their service weapons. Park wildlife biologist Kim DeLozier said the bears have been sent to the University of Tennessee for a necropsy, and park officials are virtually certain the two bears killed were the ones involved in the attack. “We know black bears have preyed on other species in the park, like white-tailed deer,” DeLozier said. “Given our black bear density and number of visitors, there’s always been the potential for this. Maybe that’s something people have underestimated in the past.” DeLozier said 37 fatal black bear attacks have been recorded in the United States. He said Sunday’s fatality was only the second fatal black bear attack in a national park. The other occurred in Yellowstone. Estimates put the park’s black bear population at about 1,800, more than triple the 300 to 500 animals that were estimated to exist when the park began monitoring its bears 30 years ago. DeLozier said the adult female’s small size (112 pounds as opposed to the typical female weight of 125 to 150 pounds) reflects the usual food shortage at this time of the year but does not indicate she was starved. He also said the adult shouldn’t have been overly protective of her cub since it was a yearling and almost old enough to be almost independent. The adult bear had been tagged in 1998 by UT wildlife officials for routine research purposes. DeLozier said the bear had no known nuisance history and was from all indications a truly wild bear. “To our knowledge this was not a rogue or nuisance bear,” DeLozier said. DeLozier said the park on average has to kill one nuisance bear a year; last year the park killed three. He said so far this year there have been few reports of nuisance bear activity. DeLozier said the park will stick to the bear management policy it implemented a decade ago stressing proper food storage by park users and increased monitoring of nuisance bears. “This attack was very bizarre and rare, but in my estimation it’s as safe now to hike in the park as it ever was,” DeLozier said.
Third bear sought
By Don Jacobs
at site of fatal attack
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
May 25, 2000
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK, Tenn. — National Park Service rangers are searching for a third black bear that may be aggressive toward humans along the same trail where a woman was fatally mauled last weekend, authorities say. “Our people are going out to put up bacon and do things that campers would do to see if they attract this bear,” said Bob Miller, spokesman for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Meanwhile, necropsies revealed Tuesday that rangers had killed the two bears involved in the mauling of a 50-year-old school teacher, Miller said. Examination of the bears’ stomachs confirmed “that both bears had preyed upon the victim,” he said. A 110-pound female black bear and its 40-pound yearling were killed about 6 p.m. Sunday by two rangers. The rangers fired 19 bullets from their 9mm and 10mm semiautomatic pistols at the bears as the animals continued to defend the woman’s body from rescue attempts, Miller said. An autopsy was scheduled for today on the body of Glenda Ann Bradley, who accompanied her ex-husband Sunday to the park for an afternoon of fishing. Miller said the autopsy should confirm if the bears’ attack caused Bradley’s death or if the woman suffered a health problem and the bears encountered her prone body. If the autopsy confirms Bradley died from a black bear attack, it will be the second such recorded death in a national park. The other fatal attack occurred in Yellowstone. Since the attack, Miller said, park officials have been inundated with calls from campers about bears that were not easily scared away. Campers are told to be dominant toward black bears by yelling and waving their arms. Gary Kelley, 38, from Nashville, Tenn., said his fishing club group of seven people encountered what he believes were the same two bears later killed by rangers and an 80-pound bear that invaded their camp for three hours. About 7:30 p.m. Friday, the female bear and its yearling entered the campsite of the Middle Tennessee Fly Fishers club. “We banged pots and pans for about 20 minutes until they ran off,” Kelley said. On Saturday morning, the third bear intruded on the campsite and refused to leave despite the ruckus raised by the group, forcing the club members to pack up and leave a day early, Kelley said. The bear bit into a pressurized propane bottle, puncturing it, he said. Kelley said his group reported the incidents to rangers. Miller said rangers are trying to locate that 80-pound bear to determine if it is a danger to campers. If the animal invades the rangers’ camp, it will be trapped and relocated, he said. Four backcountry campsites near the fatal attack have been closed since Sunday. Miller said those sites will remain closed to campers “until we’re sure no other nuisance bears are out there.” “The last thing we want to do after this is open the campsites and have a nuisance bear problem,” he said.
Experts say Smokies bear attack
By Morgan Simmons
may be rarest on record
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
May 29, 2000
The leading scientific authority on bear attacks said the fatal mauling of a woman last week in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park may be the rarest on record. Stephen Herrero, researcher at the University of Calgary in Alberta and author of “Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance,” said the incident broke a number of behavioral patterns associated with fatal black-bear attacks, beginning with where it occurred. “This was the first instance of a person being killed by a black bear in a national park in the United States,” Herrero said. “The fact that this bear was a female is another anomaly. The ratio of male black bears involved in fatal attacks is 9-to-1 over females — maybe even higher.” Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby, Tenn., was found dead in the park last Sunday. Two bears involved in the attack were shot and killed by park rangers. Rangers are still looking for a third bear that possibly was involved in the attack. Autopsy results on Bradley will not be ready for two to three months, according to park officials. In researching hundreds of bear attacks over the years, Herrero has identified some key differences in grizzly and black bear-inflicted deaths. For example, unlike fatal grizzly attacks, which frequently involve food-conditioned bears in national parks, fatal black-bear attacks almost always involve wild bears that treat the victim as prey. Herrero said the attack in the Smokies was typical in that it occurred during the day — grizzlies are more likely to attack at night — and the 112-pound black bear clearly acted as a predator. “This stalking behavior is very different from the normal aggressive display of a bear when it wants space,” Herrero said. “When people get too close to a bear, it draws attention to itself by swatting the ground or maybe snorting. The bear is trying to draw attention to itself. Anyone can recognize this. But a predacious animal stalking usually does not give itself away.” Herrero said black bears are considered less dangerous than grizzlies in sudden encounters with their cubs. He said the fact that the adult bear was accompanied by a 40-pound yearling — an examination of the bears’ stomach contents revealed that both animals had fed on the victim — was especially bizarre. “To attack with a yearling and have it immediately participate in the feeding — I don’t know of another instance like that.” Researchers currently estimate North America’s black bear population to be between 500,000 and 700,000 animals. With a population of about 1,800 black bears over 800 square miles, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park contains the highest concentration of black bears in the Southeast. Herrero said there have been a total of 43 black bear-inflicted fatalities in North America in recorded history and that over the last decade, the fatality rate from black-bear attacks has averaged about one per year. “There are a lot of black bears in U.S. national parks, and yet nothing like this has ever happened,” Herrero said. “It’s a hard thing to put a finger on because it’s such a rare thing.” Herrero said that while food-conditioned black bears are dangerous and may inflict injuries, they seldom kill people. He added, however, that in recent years there have been a number of instances in the Southwest during major shortages of wild foods where food-conditioned black bears have become more and more aggressive. Smokies officials say although the adult bear involved in the attack weighed only 112 pounds, it was not emaciated. “Clearly, there have been millions of human-bear interactions in the Smokies down through the years,” Herrero said. “But a woman was killed, and that’s obviously hard to accept.” Like bear experts all across the country, Dave Smith, of Bisbee, Ariz., has been closely following the black bear attack in the Smokies. The author of “Backcountry Bear Basics: The Definitive Guide To Avoiding Unpleasant Encounters,” Smith called the scenario “incredibly unlikely,” and said that given that there were no witnesses at the attack scene, some questions, such as did the victim attempt to fight off the attack, may forever remain unanswered. “When a bear preys on a person, biologists and reporters ask a standard list of questions: Was the bear injured or ill? Was it aged or infirm? Did it weigh less than it should for a bear of its age and sex?” Smith asked. “We want something to be wrong with the bear, some explanation for its behavior other than the fact that it was hungry and chose to prey on a human.”
