Bear believed to have eaten, buried BC murderer
This is becoming unbearable...
A bear has been implicated in the discovery of human remains on a remote logging road in British Columbia. The body has been positively-identified as convicted murderer Rory Nelson Wagner (aged 53, of Kamloops, BC). It is currently unknown what the cause of death was, but the BC Coroner has ruled out suicide.
Hunters first came across the remains after discovering Wagner's abandoned Volkswagen Jetta sedan on the road, and later discovered his buried and partially-consumed body.
The National Parole Board confirms that Wagner had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 1994 along with two others, and had killed a Langley, BC man in 1993, believing that man had sexually assaulted a relative of theirs.
Although the bear probably did not kill Wagner, Minister of the Environment Terry Lake has said that conservation officers are continuing to hunt for the animal in order to ensure public safety. RCMP Staff. Sgt. Grant Learned said that Wagner was most-likely already dead and decomposing inside his vehicle when the bear dragged him out to consume him, a statement that Regional Coroner Mark Coleman agrees with.
In the nearby city of Kamloops, where Wagner was reported missing on May 23, 2012, conservation officers have trapped two bears, including one that matches the description of the suspect bear. In a statement to Halifax, Nova Scotia's News 95.7 CJNI-FM, Acting Conservation Inspector Darcy MacPhee said that officers are using animal hair samples taken from Wagner's body, as well as inspecting teeth imprints to determine if they have the right animal. He further stated that if the bear is identified, it will be put down, as ordered by Environment Minster Terry Lake.
Sources (courtesy News 95.7 CJNI-FM):
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Comments
The animal articles return with a vengeance.
Gruesome, but darkly fitting. Also, sorry about the bear; a scavenging over actual mauling is a bit harder to justify destruction, though at least the bear will get about a fair a trial as an animal can.
Hey, we've been praised for "a surprisingly lower amount of cute animal stories". Nothing said about the nasty ones!
I can't really see a bear who's eaten a man who died probably days ago being a huge problem, unless they plan on leaving lots of dead bodies by the side of the road. I reckon it was just going off "decomposing meat".
I was amused several years ago when someone very naïvely asked what the difference was between the "carrion crows" that are always mentioned in medieval historical novels and medievalish fantasies, and the crows that we see all over Southern California today? Duh! The difference is that Southern California today is not littered with dead bodies, so the crows don't have any access to carrion -- except that if the street cleanup services are not prompt, you can often see crows pecking at roadkill (usually possum) in the middle of the streets.
Fred Patten
Yeah, Newsbytes have really reduced the number of animal stories, though they were never just cute.
It does seem a bit odd. It's punishing something for, well nothing really. Bears scavenge and it found a dead body. It doesn't make sense to blame it for following it's own nature.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
The logic has to be along the lines of don't feed the bears; this particular bear now associates people with food, in theory.
Accept now this guy "has a taste for manflesh" which is of course preposterous; we can't taste that much different than any other mostly decomposed roadkill after a certain point.
Of course, the destruction of the bear, or any problem animal, is not about wrongdoing, either. Guy thinks the bear's a threat to human lives, so he puts it down. Terribly unfair.
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