A bear is believed to have attacked and killed a 60-year-old Missouri man who was camping in the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas in a rare fatal attack, according to local officials.
The man's children called police in Newtown County after they had not heard from their father during his trip to Sam's Throne campground for a couple of days, Sheriff Glenn Wheeler said in a statement.
Police found the man's body several yards beyond the campsite, with injuries resembling those from a large carnivore attack, the sheriff's office reported.
The bear suspected to have attacked the man has been captured and killed.
Officials have not yet released the name of the 60-year-old victim. Sheriff Wheeler announced that a bear believed to be responsible for the attack was shot after it had been spotted on camera in the campground earlier that day.
Local hunters were called in and used hounds to track the bear, which was quickly chased up a tree.
The bear's remains will undergo necropsy, an autopsy for animals, to conduct further tests, including obtaining DNA samples that may match the victim.
To be 100% certain, we will have to wait on possible DNA matches, but all indications are that this is the bear responsible for the fatal attack, Sheriff Wheeler stated, expressing relief at the outcome. This was a dangerous bear.
The campground remains temporarily closed following the incident. The victim had sent his family pictures of a bear near his campsite before the attack, helping them to identify the animal—as a young male matching the size and coloration of the photographed bear.
Arkansas is home to over 5,000 black bears, the only bear species in the state. Fatal bear attacks are exceedingly rare in North America; from 1900 to 2009, only 63 fatalities were documented, according to research published in the Journal of Wildlife Management.
