"This was unusual. History will prove that out. There hadn't been a fatal bear attack in Utah in recorded history," Logan said Tuesday. "I think the agencies took appropriate action. Their intent was to remove this bear."

State wildlife officials said DNA tests confirmed the 300-pound bear was responsible for the fatal attack on the boy. He was dragged in his sleeping bag about 400 yards away in pitch darkness.

The family put up the tent about a mile from the established Timpooneke campground, off a rough dirt road, where there are no developed sites but camping is allowed.

"It's been like a surreal nightmare," Eldon Ives said Tuesday. "The violent way he was taken is a sorrow that will never heal."

Ives acknowledged authorities couldn't have been expected to shut down part of a national forest over initially confusing reports about a problem bear but contends more forceful warnings were needed.

"I don't know what can be done to deter a bear, a free-roaming creature ... but another family at the same campground had almost a dry run on the same event," said Ives, adding that rangers "should have taken more strenuous action to see to that this didn't happen to anyone else."

He said there was no food in the tent or left outside to attract a bear.

Sam was snatched from inside the tent, which had been a Father's Day gift to his stepfather, Tim Mulvey.

"Something's dragging me!" the boy screamed as he was pulled away in his sleeping bag from the tent.

Sam would have been a sixth-grader in the fall at Valley View Elementary School in Pleasant Grove.