Adult bear believed to be a danger eludes shooters

Park rangers said Friday they still are trying to euthanize a bear found acting aggressively near the “scavenged” body of a man.

The remains of William Lee Hill Jr., 30, of Louisville, Tennessee, were found Tuesday in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

According to the National Park Service, wildlife managers trapped the bear for long enough to “recover human DNA” late Tuesday night and placed a GPS collar on the bear.

Then they released the bear while they reviewed the evidence and mulled over whether to euthanize it.

Once the decision was made, the National Parks Service sent a statement to the media, saying “park officials determined the best course of action would be to humanely euthanize the bear.”

In the statement, park superintendent Cassius Cash explained, “We could not take the risk of allowing this bear to approach or show aggression towards other people.”

National Park Service spokeswoman Julena Campbell said they did not mean to imply the bear was already dead, but they thought it would happen “immediately” after they announced their decision to euthanize the bear to the public.

The bear, however, had other ideas.

Though it still wears its GPS collar, the rogue bruin so far has eluded wildlife managers, who have shut down Rich Mountain Road and the surrounding area.

“We thought it was something that would happen pretty instantly,” Sanders said. “It has surprised us that it did not.”

Sanders added bear euthanization does not happen via an injection or other drug administered while a bear is trapped. Instead, wildlife managers must hunt down the bear and shoot it directly in the brain.

“It has thus far evaded efforts for [wildlife managers] to get close enough for a clean shot to be taken to humanely euthanize it,” the park service said.

Rangers found Hill’s body late Tuesday night after he went missing last Friday. Hill was hunting for ginseng, the harvest of which is illegal in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, park officials said.

Rangers had trouble recovering the body, which showed “evidence of wildlife scavenging of the remains over the past several days.”