Oregon State Police are searching for a poacher or poachers who killed two black bears in Southwest Oregon in October.
On Oct. 29, a black bear was discovered in a tree with an arrow protruding from its chest, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement Thursday. Jackson County firefighters removed the body of the 275-pound female black bear, which was lodged about 40 feet up a pine tree off Anderson Creek Road near Talent, about 6 miles north of Ashland.
Investigators determined the bear had been shot twice with a firearm and once with a bow and arrow. Then whoever shot the animal “left it to die.”
The body of a second bear that also had been illegally shot to death was found later that day in a nearby tree. Oregon state troopers didn’t remove the second bear’s body from the tree because it was “badly decomposed and scavenged,” the department said.
“This is probably not a case of people simply having problems with bears, but a case of senseless killing,” said Derek Broman, a carnivore coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “For someone to do something like this, it’s insulting to all the hard work put into researching and managing bears in Oregon.”
There are about 34,000 bears across the state, Broman said.
Hunting black bears is legal during the spring and fall, but hunters must abide by specific rules. During the statewide fall hunting season, hunters can only kill one bear at a time and must report the killing to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Investigators did not say whether they determined both bears found Oct. 29 were killed the same day.
Hunters who kill a bear also must make an appointment with ODFW for the bear’s skull to be checked and marked at a local field office, because the wildlife agency tracks bear mortality in the state, said Sara Stilwell, a representative of the state department’s wildlife’s division.
State police asked anyone with information about the bear killings to contact TIP@osp.oregon.gov or call 1-800-452-7888, ext. 677.
Several weeks before the two bears were discovered, a GPS-collared male gray wolf was found illegally killed Oct. 6 near Upper Klamath Lake, about 70 miles east of Ashland. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is offering $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in that case, the agency said in a statement Thursday.
