So many facets to this story:

[ceetee]

I'm not sure where to start...

Ex-Marine kills marauding black bear with single blow

Associated Press
Posted June 22 2007, 10:08 AM EDT

HELEN, Ga. -- A 300-pound black bear raided a family's campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow.

Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family's cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it.

The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine, grabbed the closest thing he could find _ a log from their stash of firewood.

``(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head,'' Everhart said. ``I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear.''

Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

``We've not had an attack in Georgia,'' Riddleberger said. ``The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around.''

The attack happened the same weekend that an 11-year-old boy was killed by a black bear while camping in a forest in Utah. Sam Ives was found mauled to death after he was pulled screaming from his tent in the Uinta National Forest, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

Authorities said it was the first recorded fatal attack by a black bear in that state. His family said there was no food in the tent to attract a bear.

Tough guy... kills a 300 lb bear with a thrown log!
Got a ticket for what?!

Lesson to learn: Never try to steal food from retired Marines...

link to story

 

[Noxx]

This is almost as cool as what's his name in florida punching a shark. Almost.

 

[armedandsafe]

Got a ticket for what?!

If they had closed down and gone to bed, I can see the ticket for not securing their site. However, if they were still up and around,.....***?

Pops

 

[Crunker1337]

Can't count on flukes like this happening every time... but that doesn't make them any less awesome.

I'm not trying to be a punk, but I think the kid was a bit of an idiot to throw the shovel at the bear when it was leaving. That pretty much invited an attack.

 

[Kali Endgame]

Plus 10,000 man points to Everhart.

 

[ED21]

I'm not trying to be a punk, but I think the kid was a bit of an idiot to throw the shovel at the bear when it was leaving. That pretty much invited an attack.

*** the kid was only 6 for crying out loud. He was in the woods, camping, and only 6 years old. Sure it was not the smartest thing to do for a mature, reasoning adult but the kid was 6. Six year olds do dumb things. If they live through them they grow up and hopefully don't forget that once they were six years old and did dumb things.

 

[GhostlyKarliion]

Awesome, someone in the area needs to write to the local paper about the man getting fined, that’s ridiculous.

Good shoot, ugh I mean, good throw?

Lessons learned about Marines

- Never blow up a Marine; you'll just piss him off
- Never steal food from a Marine; you'll really piss him off

 

[shamus]

An ex-marine.

why do I find that not surprising.

 

[JesseL]

I thought there was no such thing as an ex-Marine?

 

[thexrayboy]

A ticket, for not securing a campsite....What a crock of horse****. Its a frickin picnic table with a firering.
Whats to secure.

No matter what you do or how you behave "the man" can always find a reason to pick your pocket.

 

[meef]

New thread topic coming soon to a forum near you:

What type of firewood for black bear?

 

[Aaryq]

Is there anything we can do to help this guy? I'd really like to find a way to help get this guy out of that ticket. Marine or not, he was a father doing one of his basic God-Given duties: Protecting his family. If someone had broken into his home and started doing bad things to his son, he'd have the right to kill him, not be ticketed for failing to properly secure his house.

 

[heron]

What caliber log was that? I want to buy one!

 

[psyopspec]

ex-Marine

I'm assured by certain parties in the know that such a thing doesn't exist.

This guy's testicles could displace all the water in Lake Superior, and that's accounting for shrinkage.

 

[Tommygunn]

Who was this guy? The Six Million Dollar Man??????

 

[bensdad]

Enough already with the marine adulation. You guys act like he killed the bear on purpose with a dang log. He was probably scared out of his gourd. Lucky shot. Nothing more, nothing less. A lady who was fly-fishing killed a mt. lion with a hemostat one time. She wasn't Wonder Woman... she just freaked out and stabbed with the handiest weapon.

 

[Crunker1337]

"*** the kid was only 6 for crying out loud. He was in the woods, camping, and only 6 years old. Sure it was not the smartest thing to do for a mature, reasoning adult but the kid was 6. Six year olds do dumb things. If they live through them they grow up and hopefully don't forget that once they were six years old and did dumb things."

If you're going to take a kid camping who doesn't have the sense not to entice a bear, then you need to keep him within arm's reach at all times.

 

[trueblue1776]

How scared of bears were you when you were six? I was terrified of the idea of a bear. I think that kid is gonna grow up to be the toughest man alive. Bravo lad!

 

[Logan5]

Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

If you tell the Marines to secure a campsite, they will kill whatever dangerous wild animals present themselves with hunks of firewood before they turn in for the night.

But seriously, if the six year old boy was up and about, that's a BS ticket. What does securing these campsites involve? Campers can't be expected to send in advance teams like it's a Hillary rally. If a six year old is up and about, I'd imagine that's an early afternoon event right there, and not 10pm.

I've seen black bears eat a whole internal frame pack in the process of getting to a snickers bar in a side pocket at places like Mt. Marcy in NY. Campers are forced to reinforce bad bear behavior, and it's a lousy system for bears and campers alike.

 

[BADUNAME13]

My Dad's tougher than your dad!

 

[Norm357]

He is a Marine.

I bet that there was beer in that cooler.

 

[dm1333]

Without knowing the whole story we can't judge whether or not he deserved the ticket. Having experienced the black bear problem in New Hampshire I'm all for giving out tickets.

 

[MarshallDodge]

You know what they say: Have enough log!

I don't fully understand why he got the ticket either? Is there a law against having a cooler at a campsite?

We woke up in the middle of the night while tent camping to some growling at a campground in CO. Everything had been packed away in our truck. I grabbed the gun (I didn't have a log ) and peered through a slit in the tent door. It turned out to be a couple racoons fighting over some leftover dog food we had accidentally left in the bowl. :banghead:

We had bear issues up at a remote area in CO where we kept our camper. He popped the latch on the door (very easy to do on this old camper) and got in. He ended up tearing all of the cabinet doors off the hinges looking for food. All we had left was a small can of peaches.
He found another camper and tore the door completely off the hinges and proceeded to do the same damage.

 

[dm1333]

MarshallDodge

I have seen campsites that have these heavy metal boxes with a bear proof latch on them. If you are not preparing or eating a meal your food has to be in the metal box. In New Hampshire in the White Mountain National Forest you could only camp in designated sites, even if you were back packing and miles from any road. The designated camp sites had these frames with lines attached to them so you could bag up your food and hoist the bag 30 or so feet into the air.

I'm not passing any judgement on this guy because I don't have the whole story but I think most black bear "problems" are actually "people not storing their food properly problems" or "let's feed the cute bear problems".

 

[Alphazulu6]

That was really Chuck Norris. Dont Lie!