Utah Campground Closed While Trappers Locate Bear

Filed in archive Camping on June 22, 2007

This week in my home county of Gwinnett, a father killed a black bear with a log after the bear took off after his son. Yesterday, I learned an Utah campground in the Uinta Mountains has been shut down for three days while trappers to locate a black bear that's been wreaking havoc on campers.

Attempts to catch the bear started last week and were not related to the fatal mauling of an 11-year-old boy in the Wasatch Mountains, said David Ream, a recreation manager at the U.S. Forest Service.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is in charge of capturing the bear at the Ledgefork campground above the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir, about 45 miles east of Salt Lake City.

"The bear keeps coming back," Ream said. "We try to get people to put their food away. Not everyone does. ... We've emptied the Dumpsters. The traps are baited."

The state wildlife agency is "not comfortable" with the bear at Ledgefork, Kevin Bunnell, mammals program coordinator, told KSL Radio in Salt Lake City.

Bunnell said many bear sightings this spring involve yearlings cut loose by their mothers.

"That's the best explanation that I have for why people are seeing so many bears," he said.

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