Oregon officers are reminding the general public of the implications of feeding wildlife after they needed to euthanize a black bear this week that was being deliberately fed by folks in Cottage Grove. The Oregon Division of Fish and Wildlife mentioned in a press release that the 2-year-old black bear had misplaced its concern of individuals and was a hazard to human residents of the town, which lies alongside the I-5 hall roughly 20 miles south of Eugene. At ODFW’s request, a member of the Oregon State Police killed the bear on Monday evening.
The company defined {that a} automobile dealership in Cottage Grove was a minimum of partly in charge for deliberately feeding the bear and permitting it to turn into so food-conditioned. Though ODFW wouldn’t reveal the title of the dealership when requested by a reporter with The Register-Guard, the company mentioned that in early March, it had warned an area automobile dealership and considered one of its workers to cease deliberately feeding the black bear. Doing so is taken into account a category A misdemeanor in Oregon, punishable by as much as a yr in jail and as much as $6,250 in fines.
The bear first confirmed up in Cottage Grove round March 5, and sightings turned extra frequent all through the month. ODFW mentioned wildlife officers had been making an attempt to seize the black bear over the past three weeks, however that an incident earlier this week gave them no alternative however to euthanize it.
“This week, the bear cornered a girl as she tried to enter her home and subsequently went to sleep on a neighbor’s entrance porch,” ODFW mentioned within the press launch. “These usually are not regular behaviors for a wild black bear.”
The company went onto clarify that relocation wouldn’t have been an choice on this case. Meals-conditioned black bears are inclined to return to the place they have been caught, and even when they don’t, they’ll often repeat the identical dangerous behaviors in one other location. Sending it to a zoo or wildlife rehabilitation facility wasn’t an choice both, as ODFW solely considers cubs as potential candidates for these locations.
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“Bears … have an important reminiscence relating to meals,” ODFW mentioned. “Not solely will they bear in mind the place they’ve discovered meals earlier than, together with trash, however feminine bears will even move this data all the way down to their younger.”
Though the company didn’t point out particular cases of this, the precise factor occurred with a well known bear in northern California. Recognized by locals as “Hank the Tank,” the 500-pound feminine black bear had turn into infamous for main her cubs on pantry raids round South Lake Tahoe. State officers linked the overweight bear’s DNA to a minimum of 21 house invasions within the space and so they ultimately determined to ship it off to Colorado.
