Beast of burden

The hunt for a bear that allegedly killed a six-year-old Ohio girl is reportedly over.

According to published reports, the 350 to 400 pound black bear was found today near a recreation area at Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee.

A mother and her two young children were attacked by the bear Thursday, while heading back from a popular swimming hole. Adults attempted to scare the animal off of a trail when it mauled the woman's two-year-old son, biting the boy in the head.

The mother tried to fend off the bear with rocks and sticks, but the bear attacked her, dragging her several yards off the trail, the Associated Press reported. Her six-year-old daughter apparently ran away and was later found dead next to the bear, which ran away when someone tried to shoot it.

Since then, U.S. Forest Service officials have attempted to capture the animal with baited traps.

A forest service spokeswoman said today that they believe the culprit is in custody. It will be euthanized and examined to see if it was, in fact, the same bear.

The official told NBC the bear is "the same size" as the one that killed the young Ohio girl. She also said there aren't "that many bears" in the area.

Black bears in the Eastern United States are typically quite docile, retreating from humans when provoked.

"We don’t know (that) the bear hadn’t been antagonized on the trail by the children," Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency spokesman Dan Hicks told the Associated Press. "In this case, all of our witnesses made a posthaste exit."

There have been only 56 documented killings of humans by black bears in North America in the past 100 years, according to the North American Bear Center in Minnesota.

What a sad commentary on the amount of wild terrain left in this country of suburban sprawl.

The once-plentiful species, along with many others, has been pushed further and further west as the grid of orange lights is gradually extended from sea to shining sea.

A national park is no longer a safe refuge. Folks have swimming to do.