Officials also were investigating whether the bear was the same one that clawed into a tent of campers earlier. Those campers were questioning why the area wasn't shut down after they reported a bear scavenged in their campsite and ripped their tent.

Jake Francom, 26, camped with his girlfriend, his brother and two other friends Friday night in the same primitive area just above Timpanooke. The site is not a specific Forest Service campground and has no services.

He awoke when something outside the tent hit him in the head about 5:30 a.m. Saturday.

Thinking it was someone moving in the tent, he said, "Stop it." But when he felt two more hard hits, he realized it was a bear.

Jake told his girlfriend to get out, yelling at a friend in another tent to grab his gun.

The bear ripped through the tent, taking a bite out of his pillow.

The men shot at the bear a few times. It walked away from the camp, then stopped to stare at the campers before it lumbered off.

The campers drove down the canyon and called their parents, who called police.

After hearing about Sunday's fatality and having their sons' experience characterized as a "tent-brushing," the parents said they were frustrated and wondered why the area wasn't closed.

"Why would they let another family up there?" mother Kathy Francom said. "All they had to do was shut a gate (to the campground) and that boy wouldn't be gone."

"It broke me down," father Kurt Francom said of watching the news of the mauling early Monday. "It could have been my boy."

Uinta National Forest officials defended their decision to keep the forest open, saying the information they received about the bear didn't include many details, and they were told the proper agencies had been notified.

Plus, the area the family chose wasn't actually a campground but merely a flat spot of land.

"We are indeed sorry," said John Logan, acting district ranger for the Uinta National Forest. "Our hearts are going out to the family."

When they learned of the bear-related fatality about 2 a.m., they sent rangers to sweep campgrounds in the area. The area was sparsely populated with campers, but the rangers told them about the mauling and asked them to leave, said Loyal Clark, Uinta National Forest spokeswoman.

The division also posts signs at campgrounds and trailheads to notify campers and hikers about bears in the area and necessary precautions.

"We're doing everything we can to make people bear-aware," Karpowitz said. "It's hard to plan for an event that's never ever happened in the state of Utah."

Division of Wildlife Resources immediately classified the bear as a Level Three animal and sent out officers with a shoot-to-kill prerogative, Karpowitz said.