A man who went into Great Smoky Mountains National Park to poach ginseng root (pictured here) might have been killed by a bear/NPS
A black bear believed to have scavenged on the body of a man who went to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to collect ginseng roots was killed Sunday morning by park rangers. Whether the adult boar actually killed the man remained to be determined, park staff said.
William Lee Hill, Jr., 30, of Louisville, Tenn., and a friend had gone into the park near Cades Cove a week ago Friday to hunt for ginseng, a root used by some as a traditional home medicine. Prices can go as high as $800 a pound for ginseng. While the root can be collected outside the park, it is illegal to do so inside the boundaries.
When Hill failed to meet up with his friend, a search was launched last Sunday. The man's body was found Tuesday afternoon in the woods about 2 miles north of Cades Cove and about a half-mile from the Rich Mountain Road.
Searchers who found the body, which had signs of being fed on, saw a bear in the area. It "would not leave the area, and continued to show aggression towards our searchers and others who came in to remove the body," park spokeswoman Julena Campbell said Sunday.
Since it wasn't known whether the bear had killed Hill, the decision was made to place a GPS radio collar on the bear and let it go pending further information, she said. While rangers were putting the collar on the bear, they found evidence of human DNA on it, she said.
On Wednesday, park staff, in discussions with Superintendent Cassius Cash, decided to destroy the bear. However, the GPS collar placed on the animal was programmed to send out location signals every two or three hours, and so it took longer than expected to relocate the bear, said Ms. Campbell.
Additional traps were placed near where Hill's body was found, and while the bear didn't go into any of them, on Sunday morning shortly before 10 a.m. when the traps were checked the bear was seen in the area and was killed, she said.
A necropsy on the bear, which was estimated to weigh about 175 pounds, was planned. Park officials also were awaiting autopsy results on Hill to determine how he died.
"This one’s a complicated case," Ms. Campbell said. "We don’t know what we'll find out.”
Comments
A large Asian mall in the suburbs will have that sort of thing too.
However, there's a huge premium for the wild (or even simulated wild) American ginseng. Part of it may be based on higher levels of ginsenosides, but in the end it's possible to get more of that from farmed ginseng by using more or by concentrated extracts. The premium paid for wild often has to do with the appearance. Farmed is also grown for a few years because it reaches marketable size quickly, then additional growth is slow - similar to abalone. The reason why people are going into national parks is because the wild ginseng outside of national parks have been extensively collected. Obviously a place where one isn't supposed to collect will have the best examples. Kind of like how Evel Knieval used to guarantee (as a hunting guide) bagging an elk. Only his method was to take his clients into Grand Teton or Yellowstone.
The more gnarled or one that looks like a human seem to fetch the highest prices. A would have to be chalked up to superstition. Some people see Jesus in a tortilla. Others see heads, arms, and legs sprouting from a ginseng root.
Agree with comments stating people need to use more common sense in bear country. However, that has no context in this case. Just because he was illegally poaching ginseng off-trail doesn't mean anything towards his common sense towards bear safety. Bears are everywhere in the park...doesnt matter if you are off-trail or in Cades Cove parking lot, they are around you. To me, sounds like a horrible accident to someone doing something illegal...2 different stories.
Tammy, I will leave the morality question aside, and instead focus on what is best for the bears. Bears are smart animals and learn from each other and their environment. If you allow patterns of human predation to occur, then attacks on humans will increase. If that happens, the call will go out to wipe out the bears and you can be sure that thousands of bears will be killed everywhere and plan will be put into place to cull the bear population to a low level.
Your proposed plan would actually result in the deaths of many, many more bears than under the current practice.
I IMAGINE YOU WOULD LIKE TO GIVE BEARS THE RIGHT TO VOTE ALONG WITH THE ILLEGAL ALIENS I'M SURE YOU SUPPORT. ACCORDING TO YOUR VIEWS ANIMALS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEOPLE. YOU PROBABLY CALL YOUR DOG YOUR CHILD AND HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN PROTEST, DESTROY PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND OBSTRUCT OR INHIBIT DECENT PEOPLE WHO ARE BUSY WORKING FOR A LIVING. INSTEAD OF DESTROYING OUR FREEDOM HERE PLEASE JUST MOVE TO A IDEALIC COMMI PARADISE LIKE VENSUALA, N. KOREA, OR CUBA.
I believe someone is out there doing these crimes and getting away with it. leave the bear out because that bear probably smelled the mans body and ended up devouring Him. Idk. Something just don't seem right Here. Now another person gone missing weeks after this man has passed. But anyways,
Rip and condolences to the mans family, and I hope they find the missing woman.
It takes a special kind of individual to equate predator protection to Communism.
They collared and released the bear then went back and recaptured it, I presume after the evidence collected from it turned out to be human DNA. Read, people. Andif you do a tiny bit of research you'll find out that bears do hunt stalk and attack people, aggression is not always defensive. Years ago a bearentered a residential areain the Catskills and took a baby and ate it. Bears remember food sources and will persist in obtaining whatever is tasty and obtainable. Oncethey findout humans are tasty, they can figure out that they don't have to wait forone to die of other causes in order to have a meal ofone.
I was just talking to my husband about the bear and he said the exact same thing. They had to put him down because he has the taste of human flesh. I feel incredibly sad for Mr Hill and the best. A no win scenario.