First Fatal Bear Attack in N.J. in Over 150 Years

I took my son hiking twice very recently - on Sunday, and again on Monday - before I heard about this story.

And it is scary, because I know the dangers potentially of bears. I have seen them at times while hiking, and was even in close range a couple of times, what you might call relatively close calls, although I should make clear that I have never been attacked by a bear, or anything like that.

Still, reading about this story, where a young Rutgers student was killed, was pretty eye-opening and shocking!

Five friends were hiking in the woods of West Milford, my hometown, and were apparently being followed by a bear, which sounds a bit strange. They all grew nervous, and all of them ran in different directions.

One of them, 22-year old Darsh Patel of Edison, NJ, was caught and killed by the bear. The other four friends eventually met up, but when they could not find Darsh, they called the authorities. There were claw and bite marks on his body when it was found, and the bear suspected of this was found 30 yards or so from the body, and police euthanized him.

According to an article by James Kleimann and Myles Ma (Suspected fatal bear attack may be first in N.J. in more than 150 years by James Kleimann and Myles Ma | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com - see link below), Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Ragonese said that:

the 299-pound male black bear was approximately 4 years old and had never been tagged by the DEP, meaning there was no documented history of the animal's behavior with humans.

You know, I do a lot of hiking myself and, again, I've seen bears. But you have to follow a certain amount of rules when you encounter one. And not to sound judgmental of the group of hikers on that day, but the one thing that you should never, ever do is run! Bears may look big, bulky and slow, but they can pretty much outrun any human being, so please never run.

In fact, if you go hiking in the woods, it is a good idea to understand some basic things to prepare for the potential dangers (not limited to bears) involved!


Here is the link to the article that I used in order to be able to write this blog entry:


Suspected fatal bear attack may be first in N.J. in more than 150 years by James Kleimann and Myles Ma | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com:

http://www.nj.com/passaic-county/index.ssf/2014/09/bear_that_killed_edison_man_had_no_history_of_aggression_officials_say.html#incart_related_stories