Lions and Tigers and Bears... Revisited

Another dog was attacked and killed in Vernon according to the Ledger. This one was a puppy and it had it's back broken by the bear.

What I found interesting about this article were the statistics on bear damage and sighting reports. Last year, after the bear hunt the previous year, for the period of Jan 1 to May 9 there were 48 reported bear sightings and 172 damage reports. This year for the same period, after the hunt was cancelled last year, there were 307 damage reports and 180 sightings.

Does this mean that with no hunt this year there will be 570 damage reports next year? Did the bear population grow by 40% last year? Is the bear population larger than the 1500 to 3000 that the state estimates?