When Bears Attack

A black bear attacked a Boca Raton boy in the Smokey Mountains yesterday. The boy was defended by his father, who suffered minor injuries. The boy suffered serious, but not life-threatening, injuries. The bear must have looked a lot like his Uncle Cletus because the officials got a pretty good description of the bear. They later killed a bear fitting that description. I can imagine that exchange went something like this:

Well, he was big. And black. And he was a bear. And he had some blood on him. And he ran off that-a-way. And he looked a lot like Uncle Cletus. Here I got a picture of ol' Uncle Cletus right here. That oughta help."

And, armed with this picture, the park rangers were able to track him down. Makes sense to me. Since every black bear in America looks exactly alike. I'm no PETA freak, but I'm not all for the whole let's-go-out-and-kill-innocent-bears-who-may-have-mauled-a-boy-but-we-can't-know-for-sure-until-we-kill-it-and-do-a-necropsy thing. I mean, kill an animal if you want to eat it or if it's harming or has the potential to harm you or your family, but don't just kill some poor bear based off the description of an 8-year old boy and his inattentive father. Oh, wait, you can't carry guns in national parks to protect yourself yet. Shucks.