CASS — An aged man was airlifted for medical remedy Wednesday afternoon after a small bear attacked him whereas he was working outdoors in northern Franklin County, the Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee reported.
Such an incident is uncommon; that is the primary bear assault in Arkansas in at the least 25 years, based on Keith Stephens, chief of the Communications Division for the fee.
The black bear was killed by sport wardens and a Recreation and Fish giant carnivore biologist will conduct a necropsy on the animal’s stays, Stephens stated.
The incident occurred within the Mulberry Mountain space north of Ozark when the person, who’s in his 70s, was on the aspect of a gravel highway engaged on a tractor, Stephens stated.
The sufferer’s son noticed a portion of the assault, the fee reported.
The American black bear — the smallest of its species present in the US and commonest in North America — is the one bear species that lives in Arkansas, the Recreation and Fish Fee reviews.
Their coats can vary from brown to grey to cinnamon in coloration, based on the fee, and so they quantity round 5,000 presently within the Pure State.
Arkansas previously was generally known as the Bear State and black bear sightings are frequent in late spring once they emerge from their winter dens, Recreation and Fish reviews.
“Many of the calls we get about bears getting too near cities and cities come throughout just a few months in summer time and so they’re virtually all the time younger males,” Myron Means, giant carnivore program coordinator for the Arkansas Recreation and Fish Fee, stated in an article on the fee web site. “They’ve overwintered with their mom twice and now it is time for them to search out new houses.”
Residents and guests are suggested to maintain “straightforward meals” away from bears, Means stated, and that may embody corn feeders, simply tipped over trash cans and barbecue grills with uncleaned drip pans.
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Penny Weaver is an award-winning journalist who covers crime, regulation enforcement, court docket proceedings and extra for the River Valley Democrat-Gazette. She has greater than 30 years of expertise as a reporter, photographer, columnist and editor at day by day newspapers. Penny has reported on every thing from nationwide civil rights points to hog farming in Illinois, Georgia, Texas and now Arkansas. She digs till she uncovers all of the details for each story.
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