Two Recent Wisconsin Black Bear Attacks
Man escapes attack after wife whacks bear on head with gun: She didn't know how to load the weapon, Marinette County sheriff's report says
May 16, 2013
A woman whacked a young bear over the head with a gun, rescuing her husband from an attack outside their Silver Cliff cabin Wednesday, the Marinette County Sheriff's Office said. Gerre Ninnemann, the husband, originally saw the bear running after his dog, the sheriff's report says. He went outside to call the dog in, and while the dog made it home, Ninnemann didn't. The bear tackled him in a chase, biting and clawing at his back.
He momentarily got away and ran to the corner of the cabin, but the bear was faster and mauled him again. Ninnemann's wife, Marie, took a gun from the basement but didn't know how to load the shells. She took the weapon outside and hit the bear on the head, giving her husband his chance to escape. Pointing the gun at the bear, the couple backtracked into their cabin.
The bear continued to circle the home and look in the windows. The wife called the Sheriff's Department about 1:30 p.m. After the deputy arrived, the bear walked to the front passenger side of the squad car, where the responding deputy shot and killed it.
Ninnemann had bite marks from his belt line up to the back of his head, among other injuries, and was taken to the hospital, the report says. The animal is being checked for rabies in Madison, and wildlife health officials are performing a necropsy, an examination of a dead animal, to determine what may have led the bear to attack, Department of Natural Resources area wildlife supervisor John Huff said.
The bear was only a year old, Huff said, and it was probably on its own for the first time this year. Bear attacks are so rare that the occurrences are difficult to track. There have been only a few attacks in Wisconsin in recent decades, Huff said.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscon...an-in-marinette-county-cp9vfsd-207722951.html
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Burnett County man mauled in rare black bear attack: Bear may have been drawn by food
June 18, 2013
A man doing yard work in Burnett County in northwestern Wisconsin was mauled by a black bear, the state Department of Natural Resources said.
Although such incidents are rare, a man in Marinette County in northeastern Wisconsin was attacked by a black bear a month ago. The injuries were serious enough in the Burnett County case that the man was taken by helicopter to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minn., with multiple injuries, including his face, the DNR said.
The man was identified as Gerald Brown of rural Shell Lake. The incident on Monday night started when Brown's dog tangled with the bear. Brown tried to intervene and was mauled.
Brown's brother shot at the bear, but the DNR does not believe the bear was wounded, said Mike Zeckmeister, a wildlife supervisor for the agency. Hounds tried to pick up the scent of the bear on Tuesday but were unable to do so, Zeckmeister said. Two live traps have been set and if the bear is caught, the animal will be killed.
The DNR believes the bear was drawn to the property by food — the property had shelled corn and bird feed. The owners also raise chickens, which were not kept in a chicken coop. "The concern is that we think that the bear may have imprinted on humans and there was food there, and that was the root cause of the attack," Zeckmeister said.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/burnet...e-black-bear-attack-b9936668z1-212007471.html
