Bear that killed caretaker near Cleveland put to death

August 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

A bear that mauled to death a caretaker was euthanized Saturday at the request of the family of the victim, whose father said he had told his son to leave the job.

The bear attacked Brent Kandra, 24, when he opened its cage Thursday for a routine feeding at the home of a man who kept a menagerie of wolves, tigers and bears on the property southwest of Cleveland.

The owner, Sam Mazzola, who has drawn criticism from animal-rights activists for letting people wrestle with one of his bears, had said Kandra’s family would decide the bear’s fate.

Kandra’s father, John, said he and his ex-wife, Deirdre Herbert, needed the bear to die. He also said his son felt shortchanged by Mazzola when payday rolled around.

“It just seemed like Sam kind of took advantage of my son,” Kandra’s father said. “I told him a couple times, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t work for him.’”

Mazzola’s lawyer didn’t return a call seeking comment Saturday.

After the bear was put to death by a veterinarian, John Kandra recalled his son, a little blond boy who fished his way through childhood in the rivers of Northeast Ohio, baiting bullfrogs with a blade of grass and catching carp big enough to shame the tallest teller of fish tales.

“I can’t think of when he wasn’t involved with animals,” Kandra said.

His son began fishing at age 4, reeling in fish after fish and begging to cast his rod just one more time. He tried to bring home his biggest catches, where he always had animals — a pet snake, a turtle or a dog.

After Kandra died, his father paged through mementos of his son’s childhood, the fridge-worthy school assignments and other keepsakes a parent saves. He fixated on stories his son scribbled in elementary school: Brent catching a whale with a hook. Brent living among the bears in the woods.