While many of Pennsylvania’s 20,000 black bears are likely now hibernating, it’s not unusual to see bear out and active late into December, even early January.
The bear involved in the attack Wednesday night that led to the hospitalization of a Lycoming County woman is not an anomaly simply because of its presence outside of a den in mid-December.
The timing of hibernation is influenced by available food and follows a staged schedule, according to Mark Ternent, bear biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Pregnant females generally are the first to hibernate, followed gradually by most of the rest of the bear population. Some bears do not really hibernate at all.
Bear attacks on humans, like Wednesday night’s attack, are even rare, in Pennsylvania and everywhere across North America that black bears occur.
That doesn’t lessen the savagery of the attack that left Melinda LeBarron, 51, of Muncy Creek Township, in critical condition with broken bones, cuts, bruises and bite wounds, and her Chihuahua-mix dog with a broken sternum, separated ribs and bite wounds.
The dog, which could have played a part in triggering the bear’s attack, has been credited with distracting the bear long enough for LeBarron to escape, crawl back to her house and summon help.
“While bear attacks seldom occur, there’s always potential for the unfortunate exception to the rule,” said Ternent. “Fortunately, most of the injuries that have occurred in Pennsylvania have not been life-threatening.”
“While there still are some questions about what led to this attack, it can be said with certainty that these types of encounters are extremely rare,” he explained. “Pennsylvania has a large bear population – about 20,000 animals. It’s not unusual for bears to occur in residential areas, and interactions between people and bears occur regularly, typically without incident.”
Most injuries from bears can be explained by human activities such as feeding or accidentally surprising a habituated bear in close quarters, Ternent said.
In addition to trying to find and kill the bear involved in the attack, game wardens have moved door-to-door to inform neighbors about the attack and educate the public about bears and steps that can be taken to discourage bears from properties.
It is unlawful in Pennsylvania to intentionally feed bears, and items like garbage or birdseed can attract bears to a property when left outside. If such food sources are removed, a bear has little reason to spend time around homes.
Although not all of the details surrounding the attack are known, the Game Commission said, its wardens’ investigation has revealed the bear had cubs by its side, and the victim was attacked as she attempted to retrieve her dog, which had run toward the bears.
“In canvassing the homes in the area, our officers are making sure residents are aware of the law that prohibits the feeding of bears, and otherwise doing what they can to ensure their safety,” said David Mitchell, director of the commission’s Northcentral Region. “While black-bear sightings are relatively common, and in most cases there’s no need to report seeing a bear, we are asking neighbors for the time being to report any black bears they see because we’re looking for the bear that caused this attack.”
The 750,000 black bears across North America have killed 61 people since 1900, according to the North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota.
In an article published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, University of Calgary professor emeritus Stephen Herrero, University of Calgary graduate Andrew Higgins, and colleagues from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and Brigham Young University analyzed the circumstances of all recorded deaths inflicted by wild black bears in North America between 1900 and 2009. They found that 63 people were killed in 59 incidents in Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states.
While statistics on non-fatal attacks are not easy to come by, in a 1999 article in the “Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine,” Timothy Floyd of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reported, “It has been estimated that bears injure an average of 10 people and kill an average of 1 person in all of North America each year.”
There are no documented cases of a wild bear in Pennsylvania killing a human, according to the Game Commission.
Just a few miles east of northeastern Pennsylvania, in West Milford, New Jersey, in 2014 hiker Darsh Patel was killed by a wild bear. It was the first fatal bear attack on a human on record in New Jersey.
In 2013, Camille Bomboy was mauled by a bear while hunting on her family’s farm in Clinton County.
A year earlier, the Clinton County coroner ruled Gary Lininger was killed by a black bear, but the commission disagreed, arguing that Lininger had been cutting down a tree, which fell on him. The game commission said Lininger was already dead when a bear came along and mauled his body.
In 2011, a bear chased Richard and Angela Moyer’s dog into their Perry County home and injured both of them before they and their dog drove the bruin back outside.
In 2009, Kelly Ann Walz, a resident of Ross Township, Monroe County, was killed by a black bear her family kept as a pet.
