Wildlife officials shot and killed a collared yearling black bear Thursday after it entered an Ely-area garage where children were present.
The bear had been collared in July by Lynn Rogers of the Wildlife Research Institute in Ely, but it wasn't one of the well-known bears tracked by Rogers and other researchers or followed by the public on Internet webcams.
Conservation officers with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources responded to a call from Eagles Nest Township residents whose children were in the garage when a bear entered it, according to the DNR. The residents said they attempted to scare it away with an air horn and a stick, and it snarled at them and hung around the area. An incident report says the residents' kids were then "stuck in the cabin" because of the bear. They had arrived in the previous 24 hours and there was nothing around to attract it, they told officers.
Conservation Officer Dan Starr wrote that after arriving at the cabin, he and another officer saw the bear near their truck. Starr walked toward it quickly to scare it away, but it didn't immediately move. It walked away and came back and approached Starr, bumping his hand with its nose, the report says. The bear opened its mouth halfway and bumped Starr's hand with its teeth and then drew back.
"Observed the bear's open mouth and contact to have 'bite' potential," the report says. "Mentally noted that I had not spoken to this bear, did not have any food bags or containers in my possession, and had clean hands with no food in them."
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The bear appeared to have been used to humans hand-feeding it, the DNR said.
The residents told the officers they had been patient with bears over the year, but this bear had gone too far, the report said.
Based on the landowner's complaints and request to remove the bear, safety concerns and witnessed behavior, Starr decided to shoot the bear, the report says. The officers contacted the bear researchers after the bear had been killed.
Under DNR policy and state law, conservation officers and other enforcement agencies can kill nuisance bears if they are a threat to public safety. The DNR generally doesn't trap and relocate them because they often return to the area or create problems elsewhere, according to the DNR.
Rogers and fellow researcher Lynn Mansfield first encountered the young bear in July when they found it injured, probably from a car, he said. No females within their study area fit as the bear's mother, he said. They gave the bear antibiotics and put a radio collar on it, without the need for a tranquilizer, and named it Noliana. He said the bear appears to have been killed over fear rather than danger.
"This little bear was so mild-mannered," Rogers said. "We give her antibiotics, we put a collar on her, we man-handle her and she doesn't slap or nip; very calm. When I hear about this bear seeming to be threatening or snarling, I think there is a lot of interpretation going on there."
Residents in that township for years have fed bears, Rogers said, and because of that, there are few problems with them. Rogers was hoping to identify the origin of Noliana in the fall when yearlings typically "den" in their mother's territory.
"But we will never know," he said.
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About 200 Facebook fans of Lily, the most famous of the studied bears, have expressed their outrage over the yearling's death.
