Denali National Park is teeming with visitors this time of year and a bear that has previously charged at people did so again, but this time the grizzly made contact with a hiker. Three friends were on a trail when the bear came up to them biting and scratching one of the hikers, but then it left.
Grizzly attacked, left, and returned
A little while later the bear returned, but it was scared away when one of thehikers threw rocks at it and made loud noises. The hiker attacked by the grizzly was treated at a Denali park station by staff and then she went with her friends to an Anchorage hospital for further treatment, reports Fox News.
Same bear recently charged other hikers
It was a juvenile grizzlythat attacked the 28-year-old hiker at about 7 p.m. on Friday. The trio were hiking along the Savage Alpine Trail in Denali National Park.This same bear has charged other hikers along the same Savage Alpine trails. Back in June it charged a hiker and took food out of the day pack she had with her.
Officials at the park said that they've attempted to teach the bear to steer clear of humans, but their efforts haven't paid off. The park officials released a statement saying how this particular grizzly bear has charged several groups of hikers and it has obtained food from another hiker.
Grizzly to be hunted and killed
Now with this latest incident where the grizzly actually made contact with a park visitor by biting and scratching the hiker, they have no choice but to put the bear down.
In the last two weeks this bear's "erratic behavior" along with its "general interest in people" has put people in danger.The park is highly visited and the bear is now causing an unacceptable risk of danger to the people in the park. The officials stated that they will "locate and kill the bear as soon as safely possible."
Killing bear instead of relocating?
The hikers said as soon as the bear scratched and bit the one hiker in the group, it took off, but then it came back.
It does sound as if the bear was becoming too familiar with people, but they are in the bear's habitat, its not the other way around. Officials didn't say why they don't try to capture the bear and release it somewhere that is more remote than Denali Park. The area where the bear is now in the park is an area visited often by hikers, but Alaska is so vast that there are areas that are very seldom traveled by humans.
