Bear cubs released after mom euthanized
Three black bear cubs that lost their mother during a scuffle in Butler County on Tuesday were released in the wild by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
The melee occurred at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when Lee Ann Galante, 55, of Bellefield Drive in Butler Township opened the door to let her dog out. She told Post-Gazette news partner KDKA that she saw three large bear cubs in the yard and their mother attacked her from behind and knocked her to the ground.
“Then she got me by the back of the head and she was pulling so hard on it I thought I was going to get scalped,” Galante said.
The dog distracted the bear and both were able to get back into the house. Medics from Butler County 911 took Galante to Butler Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries to her head and arms. The dog was unharmed.
Butler Township police arrived to find the sow and cubs huddled in a nearby tree. When the adult became aggressive and threatened police, it was euthanized by the Game Commission. The cubs were anesthetized and removed.
Travis Lau, Game Commission spokesman, said agency protocol was followed on site and during the subsequent investigation.
“Any bear involved in an attack [on a human] is euthanized,” he said. “Our bears here in Pennsylvania are not especially aggressive. They’re just not prone to attack. If it happens, there’s usually some aggravating factor — the bear feels trapped or is protecting its young. But you can’t get into a bear’s head. There’s no way to verify that you don’t have a dangerous bear. To ensure public safety, bears involved in an attack are euthanized.”
The bear was removed from the yard and tested for rabies. The test must be done after an animal is dead, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
The cubs were held until the Game Commission could determine if any were involved in the attack.
“The victim was able to identify the adult female as the bear that attacked her,” Lau said Thursday. “The cubs weren’t involved in any way. … The mother’s [rabies] test came back negative. She didn’t have it. It would have been highly unusual for the cubs to have rabies if the mother didn’t.”
On emerging from hibernation, bear cubs stay with the mother for a year before being pushed out to establish their own ranges. From their large size it was determined that these were last year’s cubs. With rabies ruled out, the yearlings were relocated Thursday to a remote part of State Game Land 282 in Warren County.
“They would have been run off in a couple of months. Being this big makes it easier for them to survive on their own,” said Lau.
A Game Commission program has helped the state’s bear population to increase from less than 5,000 in 1980 to about 18,000. Bear attacks are rare in Pennsylvania — generally two occur per year — and no fatal bear attack has been documented in the commonwealth for as long as records have been kept.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if not for the Game Commission there wouldn’t be bears in Pennsylvania,” said Lau. “It was truly a beautiful sight to see those cubs released. Euthanasia is sometimes necessary for public safety, but nobody wants to have to make that decision.”