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
Article needs to be corrected, he was a ginseng poached and the chinese are buying up all they can for $1000 a pound or more and it's being poached to the point of extinction.
You are silly.I bet you live in the city.
It's not really all that close to extinctiion, although some states consider local wild populations to be endangered. Poaching of course isn't not great, but this is likely a plant that could be reintroduced pretty easily with seeds. I understand that the requirement for legal digging in many states is to spread any seeds.
The sale is kind of odd. The price that's being paid for wild American ginseng may be high at retail, but what collectors can get is actually pretty low compared to the retail price. The vast majority of what's available is farmed. There is a huge premium for wild, but for the most part it seems to be a matter of superstition as to the appearance. They especially value pieces that have shapes that look similar to a body with legs and arms. There's really no rationale that such an appearance has any better pharmacological properties than any other shape.
Very true! Regardless of these people with no respect for nature. And for somebody to say bears are overly populated... Who are you to say this? HUMANS are overly populated. We destroy everything we touch. We are over populated! Bears will kill if they feel threatened. I had the pleasure of seeing a bear this weekend in the Smokey's. He was feasting on the neighbors trash. I called down to him throwing food in his direction. He just looked up at me and laid down sprawled out on the neighbors patio. When they pulled up, he ran to the outskirts of the woods and just stayed there with his bag of trash. If you don't want to attract bears, don't leave your trash outside where they can smell it and put your damn dogs inside. These mountains are the bears home! If you decide to live among them, at least have the respect and knowledge to do so peacefully. People think we can destroy anything we want just because we're human. If you are not killing to eat, you shouldn't be doing it. Humans take so much more then we give back.
And I can guarantee you, that man died of other causes. That bear didn't just attack him out of nowhere. Pretty sure he was already dead when the bear found him and decided to try it. Bears shouldn't be killed for being bears when humans are rarely killed for being monsters. That bear should have been left alone and for the rangers to have killed him... they need to be replaced. They failed at their jobs.
The wildlife agency made a judgement call based on information it had at the time and I support their decision. Regardless of what someone was doing, illegal or not, loss of his life is a tragedy. Lossing one bear to prudent judgement is not. Black bears have been known to attack humans without provocation and eat them. Many people have different opinions about wildlife management, but In Tennessee hundreds of black bears are hunted and killed each year to help manage the estimated 7,000 black bears from becoming over populated. Hatitat can only support so many animals and when animals cannot find food they will move to others areas to find it. Black bear populations have been steadily increasing in Tennessee since the 1970's. We've had black bears in downtown Knoxville and black bears are continuing to expand their territory all over the U.S. Thanks to wildlife management efforts and hunters fees which support wildlife management we all benefit from being able to enjoy and see more wildlife with the best parks in the world.
Just stay out of the woods.
Wow, if a Bear kills a human, why does the Bear need to be euthanized? I've always scratched my head about this. And to the person who said Black Bears aren't aggressive is living in a fantasy land.