A black bear that attacked a couple and their dog on the Blue Ridge Parkway was unrelenting in its efforts to get them, parkway officials said Friday.
The attack Wednesday evening, which occurred near the parkway's Folk Art Center that is located in "a very urban, populated part of Asheville," commenced after the couple's dog, which was unleashed, spotted the bear and ran toward it, barking, park staff have said. The couple, who were picnicking, received minor injuries trying to get their dog and themselves into the safety of their car.
Even then, the bear tried to get the couple after they were inside their car, said parkway spokesperson Leesa Brandon.
"The bear repeatedly attacked the car once the dog and couple were inside. Based on biologists' review, the attack on the car was a continued attempt to attack the people inside, and thus deemed aggressive and atypically bold," she told the Traveler in an email.
The bear possibly was agitated by the couple's dog, said a park press release Thursday.
Brandon said the couple's injuries included "bites and scratches to the head and hand," and one of the individuals dislocated a shoulder.
The spokesperson said the parkway has not had a history of bear attacks on visitors, but that "(B)ear activity has been increasing this year and we have had to take other preventative measures for public safety, including the temporary closing of Mount Pisgah Campground earlier this season when we had a bear successfully obtain a food reward from campers. This bear was captured and hazed, and no further problems have presented at Pisgah Campground."
Rangers were searching for the black bear, estimated to be around 200 pounds, involved in this incident. If found, it would be put down based on the aggressiveness of the attack, park officials have said. While the bear's sex was not known, no cubs were reported in the area, said Brandon.
Whether the couple is cited for having their dog, which was described as a "shepherd-type dog," off leash remains to be seen, she said.
"Any potential charges will not be finalized until our investigation is complete. As we are still trying to identify and isolate the bear involved, this may remain open for several days," Brandon said.
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Comments
There should be no reason not to cite these people for having their dog off the leash. The whole incident probably could have been prevented if they had obeyed the law.
The agitated demeanor of the bear was a direct result of having the dog rush and attack the bear, very aggressively,no doubt!! During which I'm sure the dog owners approached the melee to save their precious doggy,which by law,should have been leashed!! The person's involved should be fined heavily and the bear left alone!! If the law had been respected this would have never happened! Ignorant tourists,no doubt!
I keep on hearing about "laws" and other claims about leaving the bear alone. But nearly everyone is losing sight that this is a populated area that just happens to be bisected by the Blue Ridge Parkway. The rules are't necessarily arbitrary, but they're often one size fits all. I mean - if the same thing happened in the parking lot of the VA hospital just a few hundred feet away, would there still be calls that the bear should be left alone? I mean - I assume there are off-leash service dogs present there that might be protective of their charges if there was a bear.
There's a pretty nice picture of this place, and the Folk Art Center is somewhere in the woods behind the hospital. The article this came from was from Stars & Stripes and about a veteran who was a patient at the hospital.
https://www.stripes.com/veterans/593541.jpg/alternates/LANDSCAPE_910/The...
The bear should not be put down due to the negligence of the people. Their dog went after the bear and like others have said they probably went to save their dog. Hunters hunt bears using dogs and who knows what this bear has experienced in the past. Like others have said if the dog were leashed this could have most likely been prevented. The bear was protecting itself and should not be punished for protecting itself!
American black bears almost never "protect themselves" by mounting a repeated attack. They protect themselves by running away. Even females with cubs will usually just cut and run, then use their superior sense of smell to find the cubs (which are trained to go up trees) later. The way bear dogs work is that they chase down bears, sometimes up a tree where they inevitably get shot. I don't consider that very sporting (the use of dogs for bear hunting has since been banned in California) but that's what they do. And the National Park Service and various wildlife agencies have used them in attempts to get bears less comfortable around humans, and especially to dissuade them from looking through garbage.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/karelian-bear-dogs-ke...
https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-wild-season-2-episode-5
I'm reading all this stuff on NPT that's showing a lack of understanding of black bear behavior and especially showing a lack of understanding of what kind of area this is. A black bear should be afraid of the dog - not annoyed by it. And this is a populated area where there are far more places where the National Park Service rules on dogs won't apply than where it does. The wildlife managers in North Carolina have to look at the big picture, which is that this is a populated area where this bear could end up doing the same thing where the rules on off-leash dogs are not the same. I can assure everyone here that if the same thing happened near Incline Village, Branson, Pasadena, Denver, Roanoke, or any number of populated areas with bears, this type of incident would mean a bear targeted to be destroyed.
we live among black bears, and we encounter them all summer in our neighborhoods. no one i know keeps their dog on a leash 100% of the time, and maybe the bear was after the picnic food. we are all taught to make loud noises and make ourselves big to scare away a bear. yes the dog may have charged toward the bear, but the bears behavior after that is extremely unusual and scary. why wouldnt the bear just leave or only attack the dog - why the people too? and why wouldnt the bear stay with the left behind picnic food? it continued after them even when they miraculously made it to the car. it seems to me everyone is looking to attack the humans who have already suffered enough.
I really hope they don't kill the bear. Those mountains are it's home, the people are the intruders. If it's a national park area then dogs are suppose to be leashed at all times. Perhaps that particular bear had been treed by hunting or wild dogs in the past & was responding accordingly?
And who is reporting that it was an "unrelenting attack"? The terrified people who decided to have a picnic with a loose dog in the bears home during the fall when they know bears are out desperately foraging for food? <facepalm> It sounds as if they weren't physically harmed, just scared. I think they should count themselves lucky & stop blaming the bear.
If your going to live or visit these mountains then you need to expect & respect the wildlife that call them home. I grew up in those very mountains & i assure you that the bears were there long before the humans. Respect the animals & stay out of their way & they will generally leave you alone. Bring food & animals into their territory & you're just inviting trouble.
Unless the bear is rabid, it should be left alone.
My property borders the GSMNP. I’ve lived here all my life. Over the years I’ve had many black bear encounters while walking with my dogs off leash. One of three things happens;
Bear runs away - 80% of the time
Bear stands his ground and scares the dogs away - 15% of the time
Bear trees - 5% of the time
I’ve never had a dog cause a bear to attack me. I’ve never had a dog attacked or harmed by a bear. I’ve never had a bear repeatedly attack my vehicle because a dog barked at it.
Most people probably don’t know that lone, predatory, male bears are responsible for 90% of all black bear attacks on humans.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/article/lone-predatory-black-bears-respo...
This was a predatory bear attack. I hope they find and kill the bear before it kills someone. Black bear populations are exploding in WNC. One less predatory bear is not going to effect the WNC black bear population in a bad way.
Next, start educating the citizens of Asheville (who have come to believe Asheville bears are “civilized”) on why they should stop feeding bears. There are three YouTube channels (that I know of) run by people who live in Asheville and are feeding bears in order to attract and film the bears for their YT channels. One guy rides around town in his car throwing food out to the bears so he can film them. He may have actually helped condition this particular bear to associate vehicles with food for all anyone knows.
Of course a barking German Sheppherd type dog would agitate a bear. Its sad that the bear will be punished for what stupid people allowed to happen. If the dog had been on a leash and the people,upon seeing the bear, immediately made way back to their vehicle none of this would be an issue.
Well - showing aggression isn't typical bear behavior when it's agitated. A bear is far more likely to just run away to get away from whatever is bothering it. Also - it's not specifically being punished any more than a bear being hunted is being punished. It's important to not anthropomorphize wild animals. It doesn't really do any good because this isn't Yogi Bear. And it probably wasn't a random thing too. This type of agression is either inherent or learned. Inherent aggression is really scary because very few black bears are like that, and learned is disappointing because a lot comes from bears being fed intentionally or or unintentionally where a bear overcomes its inherent fear through conditioning.
Really? BTW - I looked it up and it's not specifically illegal to feed bears in Buncombe County or North Carolina, although I'm not sure about the city of Asheville. Apparently there are ordinances against keeping nuisance animals, but that may not apply to a wild bear. The roads mentioned in the article are about 5 miles north of the Folk Art Center.
My "Really?" comment was really that I found it surprising that anyone would think it's a good idea. Feeding any "large wild game animal" (bear, deer, mountain lion) intentionally is illegal in my state. I don't think even baiting bears for hunting is allowed. I was just looking it up to see what the exact situation was, and it's rather shocking. But that leads me to believe that NPS rules on food storage and dog leashing are going to be largely ineffective given how little of the area is actually NPS. This surely isn't a typical national park problem.
The most egregious bear feeding I've heard of was a woman in a suburb in Colorado who even set up a wire cage where she was obviously feeding bears (I heard dog food) against state law. Even when wildlife officials found her setup they never could fine her for the behavior. But then one bear mauled her to death.
Unfortunately, some people think it’s cool to intentionally feed bears.
It is illegal to feed or bait wildlife on federal lands like NPs and USFS. State laws on private property vary. But as you have explained apparently this attack occurred on a small strip of federal land in a city. It could have just as easily happened on an unregulated strip of private land in Asheville. I read a comment on a local news report of the incident where a guy said he lived in that area and bears use that hill regularly for ingress and egress into town. That poor couple probably had no idea they were picnicking on a well used bear trail.
The YT video “More bears, people, and problems” portrays fairly well the issue we have going on in towns around the Smokies. As the bear population has exploded even indirect feeding of bears via bird feeders, trash, and pet food left on porches has become a problem.
I think the Forest Service allows bear baiting where a state allows it. I see this for Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. It's about wolves, but they mention the legality of hunting them over bait stations. Still - I'm not quite sure why that would be an issue, because I heard the preferred bear bait is not meat.
There were some pretty crazy things over the years.
Here in California, I'm sure that most residents and visitors realize that Lake Tahoe has bears, but don't necessarily understand that there are bears in Los Angeles County. They were extirpated a long time ago, but I heard that they brought in some bears from Yosemite to Angeles National Forest in the 1930s. And now the Little Old Lady from Pasadena just needs to slow down.....
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-24/bear-killed-after-be...
I'm a 5 ft. senior woman who has hiked 1,000s of miles, quite a few of them alone, in the GSMNP and in the whole region of Western North Carolina including the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have seen many bears along the trail, some close, and never was approached or threatened by them. But I followed the rules. I gave them wide berth, I didn't approach them, I stopped and walked backwards if appropriate. I would NEVER take an unleashed dog into bear territory particularly if dogs must be leashed in the location. The people who broke the law are the ones responsible for the events they brought on and for their injuries. They should be the ones paying what the law requires, not the bear who was instigated by the unleashed dog. We humans are not the only creatures with a right to live in the natural world. Unfortunately we are the only ones who think we are the masters everywhere and that we are above any laws, whether they are man-made or the laws of Nature.
To date, humans were never known to have been invited by the bears to their native habitats.
My experience with black bears is primarily in Alaska and also, years ago, in the Shenandoah National Park. My expereience largely matches that of Wasidana Tsali and I agree with his or her comments.