Another research bear apparently dead

Post date: Oct 1, 2013 5:21:50 PM

• • Updated: September 30, 2013 - 12:04 AM

  • Star Tribune

Two weeks after a hunter shot and killed a research bear named Dot, the North American Bear Center posted news on Sunday of the apparent death of another of its radio-collared bears, June.

The bear’s collar had stopped transmitting a moving GPS location on Friday night, prompting researcher Sue Mansfield to go to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) office in Tower, Minn., where she discovered the collar’s signal coming from the building.

A subsequent conversation with a DNR conservation officer revealed that a man had called to drop off June’s radio collar, Mansfield wrote in a posting co-authored with colleague Lynn Rogers. The two claimed that the officer would not say whether the bear had been shot and said they were waiting for more information.

A DNR spokeswoman could not be reached Sunday night.

The DNR had moved to cancel Rogers’ state research permit, partly because of concerns that his practice of hand-feeding bears taught the animals to see humans as a source of food. But a July compromise allowed him to keep collars on 10 bears.

Anthony Lonetree