California mom saves son, 5, from mountain lion attack using her ‘bare hands’
The mountain lion was later killed by a wildlife officer
8/29/2021
A Los Angeles-area woman used her bare hands to fight off a 65-pound mountain lion that was attacking her 5-year-old son on Thursday, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The animal attacked the boy while he was in his family’s front yard in Calabasas, leaving him with injuries to his head, neck and chest, the department said Saturday.
The mountain lion “dragged him about 45 yards” across the front lawn, said Capt. Patrick Foy, a spokesman for the department.
The boy was in stable condition, recovering from the incident, according to the department.
The boy’s mother heard the commotion from inside the house and ran outside and “started punching and striking the mountain lion with her bare hands and got him off her son,” Foy said.
The mountain lion was later killed by a wildlife officer.
The parents immediately drove the boy to a hospital, where law enforcement officers were notified of the attack and sent a wildlife officer to the scene.
Once at the house, the officer discovered a mountain lion crouching in the bushes with its “ears back and hissing” at him, Foy said.
“Due to its behavior and proximity to the attack, the warden believed it was likely the attacking lion and to protect public safety shot and killed it on site,” the wildlife department said. DNA tests later proved it was the attacking lion.
After the mountain lion was shot, another appeared and was tranquilized and moved to another location. That mountain lion, found to be collared and part of a National Park Service study, was not part of the attack and has no known history of attacking humans, the department said.
游阿拉斯加遇到大棕熊 做对「这些事」全身而退
联合新闻网
8/09/2021
一群游客在阿拉斯加遇到一只大棕熊，他们当下保持冷静，没有尖叫或做出大动作，棕熊最后绕了一圈静静地离开。
44岁佛罗里达州房地产经纪人西西莉雅诺（Cara Siciliano）当时和另2对夫妇、1名水上飞机机长一起参观卡特迈国家公园和自然保护区（Katmai Park）。拍下影片的西西莉雅诺表示：「同行的机长说他在这条小路上走了1000次，但从没有见过这样的事情！」
西西莉雅诺提到：「我很惊讶我似乎没想像中害怕，我第一反应是仰望天空，确保上帝与我同在并祈祷，接着用手机拍下这段影片。」
这段30秒的影片拍到一只最大可重达700多公斤、275公分高的阿拉斯加棕熊，以及站在碎石路旁如雕像般不动声色的游客们。游客们都没有表现惊慌失措的神情，只有机长以平缓的声音对熊说：「嘿大男孩」、「嘿熊」，最后棕熊离开现场。
西西莉雅诺很惊讶机长跟熊的话语让他们全身而退，尤其是这只棕熊与他们相遇前，才刚跟另一只熊打完架因此发出沉重的喘息声。熊专家赞扬这群游客遵循了国家公园管理局的建议，没有尖叫或奔跑，缓慢移动，并用单调的声音说话，让牠知道人们在那里不会带来伤害。
Bear Pulls California Woman Out of Her Tent, Kills Her in Montana
Lokan was killed on the bear’s second visit to the site where she and two fellow bicyclists were camping near the post office, officials said.
By Amy Beth Hanson and Matthew Brown
7/08/2021
A grizzly bear pulled a woman from her tent in a small Montana town in the middle of the night and killed her before fellow campers could use bear spray to force the bruin out of the area, wildlife officials said Wednesday.
Leah Davis Lokan, 65, of Chico, California, was on a long-distance bicycling trip and had stopped in the western Montana town of Ovando when she was killed early Tuesday, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials as they provided more details about the attack.
Lokan was killed on the bear’s second visit to the site where she and two fellow bicyclists were camping near the post office, officials said.
The approximately 400-pound grizzly first awakened the campers about 3 a.m., officials said. They took food out of their tents, secured it and went back to sleep, they said.
Surveillance video from a business in town showed the bear about a block from the post office about 15 minutes later, wildlife officials said.
About 4:15 a.m., the sheriff’s office received a 911 call after two people in a tent near the victim’s were awakened by sounds of the attack, Powell County Sheriff Gavin Roselles said. They discharged their bear spray, and the bear ran away.
The bear is also believed to have entered a chicken coop in town that night, killing and eating several chickens.
Officials searched by helicopter for the grizzly again Wednesday but couldn’t find it.
“At this point, our best chance for catching this bear will be culvert traps set in the area near the chicken coop where the bear killed and ate several chickens,” said Randy Arnold, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional supervisor in Missoula.
The bear will be killed if it is found, said Greg Lemon, a spokesperson for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Investigators have obtained DNA from the bear at the scene of the attack and will be able to compare it with any bruin they are able to trap, the agency said.
Lokan, a registered nurse who had worked at a hospital in Chico, had looked forward to the Montana bike trip for months, said Mary Flowers, a friend of the victim’s from Chico. Lokan had taken previous long-distance bike trips and on this one was accompanied by her sister and a friend, Flowers said.
“She loved these kind of adventures. A woman in her 60s, and she’s dong this kind of stuff — she had a passion for life that was out of the ordinary,” Flowers said.
Grizzly bears have run into increasing conflict with humans in the Northern Rockies over the past decade as the federally protected animals expanded into new areas and the number of people living and recreating in the region grew. That has spurred calls from elected officials in Montana and neighboring Wyoming and Idaho to lift protections so the animals could be hunted.
Ovando, about 60 miles northwest of Helena, is a community of fewer than 100 people at the edge of the sprawling Bob Marshall wilderness.
North of Ovando lies an expanse of forests and mountains, including Glacier National Park that stretches to Canada and is home to an estimated 1,000 grizzlies. It’s the largest concentration of the bruins in the contiguous U.S.
Fatal attacks are rare in the region. There have been three in the last 20 years, including Tuesday’s mauling, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 2001, a hunter was killed by a grizzly with two cubs while he was gutting an elk at a wildlife management area west of Ovando. The three animals were shot and killed by wildlife officials days later.
Over the past 20 years, there have been eight fatal maulings of people by grizzlies from a separate population of about 700 bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. In April, a backcountry guide was killed by a grizzly bear while fishing along the park’s border in southwestern Montana.
Bears that attack people are not always killed if the mauling resulted from a surprise encounter or the bear was defending its young. But the bear involved in Lokan’s death is considered a public safety threat because of the circumstances of the attack, Lemon said.