A grizzly bear killed a man outside Yellowstone National Park, apparently just hours after researchers trapped and tranquilized the animal.
The attack happened on Thursday in the same place where two researchers with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team had examined a large adult male grizzly earlier that day, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said on Friday.
TRAPPING AGAIN
The bear was wearing a radio collar. Authorities didn’t intend to venture into the woods to chase the animal, however.
They hoped to trap it — again — and do DNA testing to see if it was indeed responsible.
Shoshone National Forest officials closed off the Kitty Creek area, about 10km outside the Yellowstone East Entrance, until further notice.
The victim was Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Wyoming, who went hiking around 12:45pm local time from his cabin in the Kitty Creek drainage.
When Evert didn’t return, his wife went looking for him and met one of the bear researchers. The researchers had been getting ready to leave the area ,but one of them returned to the place where they had found the bear in a previously set trap, then tranquilized the animal for study.
The researcher found Evert’s body where they had left the bear to wake up, about 3.2km from Evert’s cabin.
INVESTIGATION
The team is made up of federal and state biologists who monitor and study grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
The researchers also had trapped and tranquilized another grizzly in the area on Thursday.
Schwartz said there would be an investigation, including into whether required procedures were followed, such as posting warning signs about the grizzly research.
Schwartz said it wasn’t certain whether the trapped grizzly had mauled Evert, but Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said it was unlikely that another grizzly would have been in the same area as the large adult male.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was working on Friday to try to recapture the bear, agency spokesman Eric Keszler said.
Grizzly bears have been back on the federal list of threatened species since last year.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of