Campbell police shoot bear cub

Staff report

CAMPBELL

Mary Sass has been a resident of her Campbell home on Notre Dame Drive for the past 50 years.

“I’ve been here all these years, and I’ve never seen a bear [in the area],” she said.

But Campbell police shot a black bear cub near her home Sunday night.

Officers responded to reports of the bear wandering in the area, including near yards where children were playing, shortly after 9 p.m. A police report described the cub as roughly four times the size of Officer Eric Manning’s German shepherd police dog.

Manning heard Lori Nestor, 49, of Notre Dame Drive calling, “Come on, let’s go,” from her backyard.

Though Nestor was actually calling her dog, Manning could not fully see Nestor from where he was standing and assumed she was speaking to a child, according to a police report. To protect a potential child, Manning responded within a “fraction of a second” by firing two rounds from his rifle at the bear, the report states.

The shots paralyzed but did not kill the bear. After another officer arrived on the scene, Manning used his service revolver to end the bear’s suffering.

Nestor said she and her dog were inside the whole time, although the back window was open. She said it was the “acoustics of the neighborhood” that cause police to think she and her dog were outside.

“I think they were free to make a snap judgment,” she said.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources took the bear’s carcass.

Black bears, which can range between 100 and 400 pounds, typically attack only when provoked, said Jamey Emmert, an ODNR spokeswoman.

Shooting the bear “is not a typical reaction that we recommend,” she said.

But she added, “I wasn’t there, so there’s just no way for me to judge the situation. It’s up to the police to respond as they see fit if they think human safety is an issue.”

Sightings of black bears – an endangered species in Ohio – spike in the region during the summer when mother bears kick their offspring out of their dens to make room for a new litter of cubs.

Most sightings involve young male bears since they are more territorial and tend to travel further after leaving their mother’s den.

Cubs typically travel east to as far as Pennsylvania.

Emmert cautioned against leaving food – including garbage, pet food, grease from grills or bird feeders – outside where bears could access it. If confronted by a black bear, people should walk away slowly to avoid making the bear feel threatened and raise their hands to appear larger, Emmert said.

The majority of black-bear attacks, Emmert said, occur when people attempt to feed or otherwise interact with the animals.

“Black bears are adorable, sure,” she said. “But they are wild animals.”