It's the time of year when bears are packing away the calories to prepare for hibernation, which means that people living in bear country should exercise a little extra caution. This is even more so in some semi-rural and even suburban areas, where bears are losing their normal caution around humans, and if you're a bear, anything in your environment that isn't a danger is a possible meal.
A couple in Salmon, Idaho had this unfortunate experience, when a young bear attacked them on their own porch.
A young bear left two people injured outside their home in a small Idaho town on Friday, authorities said.
The attack happened around 3:30 in the morning in the Sunset Heights subdivision near Salmon, Idaho, which has a population of just over 3,000.
One of the victims was taken by helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, according to Idaho Fish and Game.
"Idaho Fish and Game was notified by the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office and mobilized the IDFG Wildlife Human Attack Response Team to secure the scene," the department said.
Now, there's no indication these people did anything wrong. Given what we know, this seems to have been an opportunistic attack by a juvenile.
The usual cautions apply, especially at this time of year; keep your property clean, try to minimize food odors, keep your trash bear-proofed. Spoofing a bear's sense of smell is a challenge, though; a bear's sense of smell is incomprehensible to humans. An old example that keeps floating around, probably because it's pretty accurate: If you order a pizza, when it shows up, you smell the pizza. A bear in your spot would smell the crust, the sauce, the cheese, each individual piece of pepperoni and sausage, the cardboard of the box, the ink of the pizza joint's logo on the box, the delivery guy's deodorant and after-shave, the engine oil and exhaust fumes coming from his car, and all the dead bugs on his windshield.
In this case, another rule applies: When a bear starts associating humans with food, it generally ends badly for the bear.
Authorities later found the bear, its sibling, and who was believed to be their mother, using a professional houndsman to track them and euthanized all three of them.
When the Idaho authorities say "euthanized" in this context, we can safely assume they mean "...with bullets."
Bear encounters, of the sort deemed "unfavorable human-bear interactions," are on the uptick this year. Bear populations in the lower 48 are on the rise, and more and more people are moving into bear territory. Add to that the fact that the black bear, the only bear extant in most of the lower 48, is very adaptable, does very well in close proximity to humans, and while attacks by black bears are still rare, when they do attack they are more likely to be attacking with predatory intent. In other words, a griz may charge you to keep you away from its cubs or a food source, while a black bear may be trying to eat you.
So, yes, it's that time of year again. Be careful, keep your trash locked up and your property clean if you're in bear country — and carrying a major-caliber sidearm isn't the worst idea.