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 Newton 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 indicated.
The bear suspected to have attacked the man has since been caught and killed.
Officials have not yet released the name of the 60-year-old victim.
Sheriff Wheeler stated that the bear believed to be responsible for the attack was captured after being caught on camera in the campground earlier that day.
Local hunters were brought in with hounds, and they managed to track the bear, eventually chasing it up a tree.
The bear's remains will undergo a necropsy (an autopsy performed on an animal) and other tests, including checking for DNA samples that 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 noted. This is a relief to me and the community, and I thank God for this outcome. This was a dangerous bear.
The campground will remain temporarily closed.
The victim had previously sent pictures of a bear in his campsite to his family before the attack, which helped identify the animal as a young male matching the bear's size and coloration.
Arkansas is home to over 5,000 black bears, the only bear species in the state. Bear attacks are rare, especially fatal ones, in North America. A study from the Journal of Wildlife Management indicated that from 1900 to 2009, just 63 people died from black bear attacks in North America.
