Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officials shot and killed a black bear and her cub in Index Tuesday, concluding a search that began after a bear attacked a local woman Sunday.<\/p>\n
The woman suffered serious, but non-life-threatening injuries in the backyard assault and was hospitalized overnight, according to WDFW.<\/p>\n
State regulations require bears involved in attacks on humans to be killed, according to the WDFW.<\/p>\n
Wildlife officers located the two bears in a tree behind a commercial property, identified by residents as the Bush house, a hotel in Index, before killing them.<\/p>\n
WDFW reports that the attack occurred Sunday morning while the woman was walking her dog in her backyard.<\/p>\n
A black bear attacked her from behind, knocking her to the ground and continuing the assault by biting and scratching her, according to WDFW.<\/p>\n
WDFW says she managed to reach her house and call emergency services before medics transported her to a nearby hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n
WDFW vehicles were seen searching the area Monday before officers located the two bears Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Some community members questioned whether the bears killed behind the hotel were definitively the animals responsible for the incident over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Dusty Dionne, a local resident in Index who previously captured video footage of the two bears, expressed frustration with how authorities handled the situation.<\/p>\n
Dionne noted that he has watched the bears mature while wandering through the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“Like many in the community, I feel discouraged,” Dionne said. “Approximately 80% of the residents are deeply troubled, while about 20% believe the bear received the outcome it deserved.”<\/p>\n
Dionne also questioned whether the lethal removal was necessary, stating he believes officials intended to kill the bears from the start.<\/p>\n
WDFW officials noted that once bears locate unnatural food sources, such as trash, they frequently return to those locations.<\/p>\n
WDFW stated that attempts to relocate bears over long distances are usually ineffective once that behavior becomes ingrained.<\/p>\n
A public meeting regarding local bear activity is scheduled for Friday at 5 p.m. at the Old Fire Hall in Index.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officials shot and killed a black bear and her cub in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-669003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}