For the second day in a row Environmental Police were called to Amherst to deal with a large wild animal roaming about our town -- this time a 300-400 pound female bear.
17-year-old girl scratched by small bear in South Amherst. APD enroute to scene. Mother taking her daughter to hospital.
— Larry Kelley (@amherstac) May 31, 2015
A little after 9:30 last night Dispatch received a call from a Belchertown mother saying she was transporting her 17-year-old daughter to the hospital after she had been scratched by a small bear as she was house sitting and walking a dog on Tracy Circle in South Amherst.
The young woman climbed aboard a parked car to escape the critter.
When Amherst police arrived shorty after, the bear could be seen in a backyard. And there was nothing "small" about it.
The officer reported it was not a juvenile, weighing in at between 300-400 pounds and was wearing an electronic tracking collar so it was known to Environmental Police.
About 30 minutes later, just after an Amherst Police officer told Dispatch the bear was getting "restless", Environmental Police arrived and safely dealt with it.
"The bear will live to climb another tree", said the Amherst police officer.
Posted June 1st
The wild life of college students replaced by wildlife.
ReplyDeleteSo the bear has been captured and is no longer in south Amherst?
ReplyDeleteYes
ReplyDeleteMoose at a Greenfield school yesterday morning- I wonder where the Amherst one was released!
ReplyDeleteThis story could have been worse. At a bare minimum the girl was only scratched thankfully. Now you see why some can not bear to live in areas where their are bears. There is nothing you can do but grin and bear it. And that's just the bare truth of the matter.
ReplyDeleteShe's lucky her little dog didn't become lunch...
ReplyDeleteOr maybe she had the guts to confront the bear, the right way, which is why SHE didn't become lunch...
Three letters: G U N.....
Yes, I do have to wonder what the officer would have done had he arrived as the scary scene was first unfolding with the bear trying to get the girl on top of the auto.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if he had a shotgun in his trunk or not, but his sidearm probably would have just pissed her off.
"Her" being the bear of course.
ReplyDeleteRemember, in all situations, guns are the solution.
ReplyDeleteAnother person who never took an oath to uphold the Constitution, I presume.
Delete"Yes, I do have to wonder what the officer would have done had he arrived as the scary scene was first unfolding with the bear trying to get the girl on top of the auto."
ReplyDeleteThere is one more thing you need to understand -- at least as it applies to Grizzly Bears, Black Bears usually aren't this aggressive (and if this is the second time this bear has been a problem, ummmm....)
I'm told that a Grizzly Bear's heart only beats 3-4 times a *minute* which means that even if you inflict a fatal wound with a rifle, Grizzly will kill you before bleeding to death -- the animal won't bleed out fast enough.
Hence what you have to do -- and what I would have done with my 9MM were I the officer and decided that shooting was the better of two options, the other being not shooting -- is "break something."
Structural damage.
It is incredibly cruel and inhumane, but the only think you can do is use your bullets to break joints so that the animal isn't able to come at you anymore, or at least disabled enough to give you the ability to run away. Unless the shotgun was loaded with slug rounds (which I highly doubt), unless the shotgun had a very very tight pattern (which I also doubt), my weapon of choice would have been the Glock.
Now if I'd had the presence of mind to grab a couple highway flares as I got out of the cruiser -- animals are very much afraid of fire, they don't like to see it or smell it and while I would definitely not taunt the animal with it, I'm suspecting that merely lighting a flare or two would give Yogi some serous second thoughts about remaining there.
Now if you could touch something else off with the flare -- say a pile of dry leaves or dry brush -- there is no way in hell that the bear is going to remain. Bluntly stated, bears that weren't bright enough to run away from forest fires didn't reproduce and that includes forest fires centuries ago that were started by lighting. All animals have an inherent fear of fire -- that's why the fire in the cave kept early humans from being eaten (along with the fact that we didn't taste good.)
Of course you have just started a brush fire that could well become a major forest fire (sorry, AFD) but -- well, I have always made the point that when human life is on the line, one can do a lot of things that would never EVER be acceptable otherwise.
Dead girl or a couple dozen scorched acres -- it isn't going to be "dead girl", not with me...
Ummm -- the human girl didn't happen to get between Mommy Bear and a Baby Bear did she?
ReplyDeleteWas the reported "little bear" the baby bear (it's the right time of year for that) and please tell me that human girl wasn't stupid enough to go pat the cute little baby bear who looked like it was all alone...
That would explain a LOT and I'd say that Human Girl is damn lucky to be alive.
A) APD carries .40
ReplyDeleteB) All cruiser nowadays have shotguns and/or rifles
C) I am sure the siren or air horn would have scared mama bear away
D) If not…shotgun slugs = dead bear
D) Glad it did not come to that
How many rounds to a clip?
ReplyDeleteYou know, Bears are Mammals and all that chemical ordinance including the pepperballs would work on them as well...
ReplyDeleteBicyclists in Alaska carry "Bear Spray" which I think is OC.
And the Grizzly Bear story may be a bit of "Impress the Tourists" -- instead of using a club like normal fishermen, the tourist boats blast each Holabut with a 12 gauge shotgun round. Wastes a lot of fish.
Were there possibly baby bears in the vicinity too? Some friends have said that they have seen a bear cub not far from Tracy Circle.
ReplyDeleteYes that would explain the initial report that the girl was attacked by a "small" bear.
ReplyDeletethen I hope that the mama bear & cubs were moved from the area together or are reunited soon.
ReplyDelete"then I hope that the mama bear & cubs were moved from the area together or are reunited soon."
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd much rather see both mama bear & cubs dead than any human being (even Enku Gelaye) harmed by either. It's this little thing about the preservation of human life taking priority over all else, not to mention the human right to defend human life.
"Another person who never took an oath to uphold the Constitution, I presume."
What you are thinking of -- Locke's "Rights of Man" -- is actually in the Declaration of Independence, where Jefferson wrote it as "Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness." The super-short version is that (amongst other things) the Declaration establishes our right to self-governance, while the Constitution establishes the structure we will use to govern ourselves.
However, isn't "to protect and serve" part of the oath as well?
Why are people more charitable toward what is a potentially lethal threat to them and their families than they are toward Tax-Paying UMass Students, who are merely an annoyance? And yes, UMass students pay property taxes -- the slumlords pass the bill right on to their tenants in the form of rent.
Like I said, the UM Students may be obnoxious, but I haven't heard of someone's daughter having to jump up on top of a car to escape from one of them, and if this was instigated by her (or her dog) being near a cub-- she's damn lucky to be alive. I was always told that getting "too close" to a bear cub (particularly between the cub and its mother) was along the lines of pointing a gun in the face of a police officer -- that Momma Bear or Officer Friendly WILL kill you and hence you absolutely do not do it!
Larry, as obnoxious as some UMass students may be (UMass dehumanizes them), you can't honestly say they are this level of lethal threat.
And, ummm, while the interior of a vehicle might have bought her enough time for the cops to arrive, I doubt that the top of one would have been much of a refuge from a bear with homicidal intent. While they walk on four legs, Bears can stand upright and use their front legs as we use our arms -- except they have razor-sharp claws instead of fingernails. Bears also can climb -- they are able to climb trees with no difficulty and often do.
So I'm guessing that had the bear been so inclined, and not able to simply able to knock her off the vehicle, the bear would have had little difficulty clawing her way up there after her....
One other thing -- if a homeowner had to shoot & kill a bear, he/she/it is going to be in more trouble than if he/she/it had shot & killed a person...
ReplyDeleteA woman is dragged into the bushes by a rapist -- whom she shoots to stop/prevent him from raping her. As long as that is what really happened, she is both going to have a great deal of popular support and most likely not have any legal problems, assuming all her gun paperwork is in order.
Now the same woman happens to be looking out her bedroom window and notices both her daughter and a bear cub enjoying the wild blueberries in her back pasture. With a sense of dread, she grabs her .30-06 and loads the same. Momma bear, who had been napping in the sun, suddenly realizes that there is a human between her and her cub -- she arises with a roar. Momma Bear attacks, Momma Human fires five times -- without even bothering to open the window first.
The first round is deflected by the glass, but the other four are "dead on" and bear drops dead.
Let's even say that daughter had the presence of mind to make a 911 call while running which picked up the bear's roar and then the five gunshots -- this is a police dispatch tape, credible evidence -- let's even say Larry's drone records a video of the whole thing and the APD also has Larry's 911 call (about he sees a bear chasing someone) also has the gunshots in the background -- so there is total collaboration of everything.
Let's even say the police know where the cell phone was when the 911 call was being made -- with enough specific detail to show both that the phone was moving and that the call had started at the exact spot where the bear is found, hence showing that the girl had been there before the bear. (I doubt this is possible.)
Anyone honestly believe that there wouldn't at least be talk of prosecuting her for killing the bear? Or that both mother and daughter wouldn't be facing a visceral response for "murdering" a bear?
A bear that otherwise would have killed her daughter. Why isn't that "self defense"?
I asked Chief Livingstone if one of his officers suddenly came upon a bear attacking a civilian could the officer respond immediately with deadly force without first requesting permission from the shift commanding officer?
ReplyDeleteHe replied, "Under those hypothetical circumstances, the officer would be justified in destroying the animal."
Think of all the human life we destroy without batting an eyelash.
DeleteLots of hot air for such a cold day
ReplyDeleteLarry, in the hypothetical I ask about, I have no doubt that APD is rolling heavy -- probably even the guys who are off-duty but hear the call because there really is a reason why they are doing that job. (I may have a LOT of issues with the APD, but I recognize this and I think they deserve credit for it.)
ReplyDeleteBut there is no way they will be there in time.
They'd try, the same way they would if a woman called and said "I'm being raped, please come help me, but an awful lot of bad things can happen in the 3-7 minutes it takes them to get there.
My understanding is that there is a "police officer on duty" exception to the game and environmental laws -- the issue I am raising is the non-cop, the homeowner who is trying to protect her life or that of her child -- who's made the 911 call but who will be dead before they get there.....
"Think of all the human life we destroy without batting an eyelash."
ReplyDeleteMargaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood to "Exterminate the Black Race" -- her words, she was part of the Eugenics Movement which sought to improve humanity via selective breeding and the extinction of "Inferior Races."
When they came to power in 1933, the National Socialists in Germany took this a little bit further -- they introduced what could, I suppose, be called "Post-Birth Abortion" although most of us refer to it as "The Holocaust."
When I was given my first gun, I was told "if you don't intend to eat it, and it's not bothering you or your crops, you don't shoot it." But otherwise -- you do!
Why does a damn bear have more rights than human beings?
Some human life is simply considered "tissue." But we mustn't disturb the piping plover.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was given my first gun, I was told "if you don't intend to eat it, and it's not bothering you or your crops, you don't shoot it." But otherwise -- you do!
ReplyDeletePlease tell me that Ed isn't armed.
I don't have any crops. Can I substitute 'home?'
ReplyDelete