Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials concluded efforts to trap the black bear involved in a midday attack on a 69-year-old woman in Barron County. The sow and cub involved have not been observed since the attack despite more than two weeks of aggressive monitoring and extended observation since. The DNR, in partnership with the Barron County Sheriff's Office and U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, maintained and monitored a series of live traps and game cameras on the property since the attack occurred the afternoon of July 12.
The victim, 69-year-old Karen Frye, was attacked while in the backyard of her rural residence near Comstock. Frye was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment and recovered. Randy Johnson, WDNR’s large carnivore specialist, said officials conducted two weeks of round-the-clock surveillance on the property without additional signs of the sow involved. He said officials trapped and released two boar black bears, two yearling bears and two sows determined to be unrelated to the incident. They also collected a dead sow found along a road about 1.6 miles from the site of the attack, but necropsy results were consistent with injuries from a vehicle collision. There was no evidence of it being the same bear linked to the attack.
Preliminary investigation findings, including information from the family, suggest the bear exhibited a sustained series of aggressive behaviors toward Frye before the attack. Black bears can behave defensively when feeling surprised, cornered or to protect their food or cubs. True aggressive behavior is both rare and distinctive from defensive behavior. Unfortunately, black bears displaying aggressive behavior are an elevated risk for repeating the behavior. Euthanasia was the DNR’s plan if the sow had been trapped. If the cub had been trapped it would have been relocated and released.
“Humane euthanasia is not always the standard practice in human/bear conflicts,” Johnson said. “Our actions in these types of situations are very carefully determined based upon the totality of the known evidence of each event.”
