Nashville, Tenn. – A black bear was caught in a forest recreation area Sunday and was being sent to a veterinary school to determine if it was the same animal that attacked a family, killing a 6-year-old girl.
Authorities found a bear in the same trap where they detected paw prints Saturday in the remote Cherokee National Forest Chilhowee Recreation Area, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Sharon Moore said.
The bear, which was captured near the site of the attack, looked to be the same weight as the 350- to 400-pound bear that attacked a mother and her two children on a trail in the recreation area Thursday, Moore said.
“We’re very hopeful this is the bear,” Moore said. “It’s basically the same size bear. There’s truly not that many bears in the 5,000 acres we have closed off.”
Authorities killed the bear Sunday and send its body to the University of Tennessee’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville.
Animal experts plan to compare the bear with hairs that were shed during the attack, said Bob Miller, a spokesman for Cherokee National Forest and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The experts also will look for gunshot wounds since the bear that attacked the family was shot.
A bear attacked and killed Elora Petrasek on Thursday afternoon as she and her family were leaving a waterfall pool on an 1,800-foot-high mountaintop, about 10 miles from the nearest highway.
The bear bit the girl’s 2-year-old brother, Luke Cenkus, on his head and punctured his skull, officials said. Their mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, tried to fend off the bear with rocks and sticks, but the bear attacked her, dragging her yards off the trail.
Elora apparently ran away, and almost an hour passed before a rescuer found her body about 100 yards off the trail with the bear.
The man said he shot twice at the bear with a pistol before it ran away.
Luke Cenkus was in fair condition and Susan Cenkus remained in critical condition, hospital officials said Sunday. Doctors said they expected both to recover.
The family from Clyde, Ohio, had stopped at the forest recreation area Thursday while they were in the area to visit Susan Cenkus’ eldest son, a music student at Lee University in Cleveland, near Chattanooga.
