Arkansas Went a Century Without a Fatal Bear Attack. In the Last Month, It's Had Two.

A black bear attacked and killed a camper in the state's second fatal bear attack since early September.

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Black bears, like this one, are the only bears present in Arkansas. (Photo: mlorenzphotography / Moment via Getty)

A man who suffered a fatal bear attack at an Arkansas campground late last week may have photographed the animal that killed him, authorities say.

The unnamed 60-year-old Missouri resident was staying at the popular Sam’s Throne campground in north-central Arkansas when his family called authorities on October 2 to report that they had not heard from him in several days. When a sheriff’s deputy arrived at the camper’s empty site, they noticed “evidence of a struggle and injury” and drag marks leading into the woods, the Newton County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The camper’s body was several yards outside of the site, and “had extensive injuries consistent with those expected from a large carnivore attack.”

The victim’s family told authorities that he had texted them a picture of a bear in his campground on the morning of September 30.

“Until the Arkansas Crime Lab completes the autopsy, we can’t 100 percent say it was a bear, but everything strongly indicates it,” said Newton County Sheriff Glenn Wheeler shortly after the attack. “We are attempting to find the bear and dispose of it so the Game and Fish Commission can test it for anything that may have led to the encounter. We know without a doubt that a bear was in camp with our victim and the injuries absolutely are consistent with a bear attack.” In addition to agents from the Forest Service and National Park Service, Wheeler said that local hunters were using dogs trained for tracking bears to look for the animal.

The state medical examiner has since ruled the death an animal mauling. On October 6, authorities announced they had shot and killed a male bear believed to be behind the attack.

The incident is the second bear fatality in Arkansas this fall after more than 130 years without one. In September, 72-year-old former National Park Service ranger Vernon Patton was using a tractor to move gravel on his property when a bear attacked him, causing extensive injuries. Patton died in the hospital 11 days later. At the time, the death was the first known fatal bear attack in the state since 1892.

Fatal bear attacks are rare in the United States; fatal attacks by black bears—the only species to call Arkansas home—are even rarer. A 2009 paper by bear safety authority Stephen Herrero found that just 63 people had died in attacks by non-captive black bears in the U.S. and Canada since 1900, a rate of roughly one every two years. Most of those attacks were predatory rather than defensive. The study suggested that encounters and attacks were rising as the human population expanded into bear habitat. The authors also noted that a black bear had never killed a person carrying bear spray.