Bear attack: Why no warning at campground?

PLEASANT GROVE — Samuel Evan Ives was excited to go camping with his family on Sunday night, eager to try out the new, two-room tent his stepdad had received for a Father's Day present.

But if the 11-year-old's parents had known that less than 48 hours earlier, in the same location, a 300-pound black bear had sliced open a similar tent and swiped at its occupants, the family never would have stayed at the American Fork Canyon campground that later became the site of Sam's gruesome death.

Eldon Ives, Sam's grandfather and family spokesman, said at a media gathering Tuesday that U.S. Forest Service officials should have closed the primitive camping area where the bear had previously bothered other campers. If there had been some kind of warning, then maybe Sam would still be alive and the family would not be enduring this "surreal nightmare," Ives said as he held back tears and shook with emotion.

"It's hard for us to go around placing blame on people, but we do feel that the campgrounds should have been closed down and that there should have been a warning to campers that there had been problems with a bear in that same area," Ives said. "If there's anything positive that can come out of this, we hope that the Forest Service will do a better job at protecting campers in the future."

Sam was sleeping just feet away from his mother, Rebecca Ives, and stepfather, Tim Mulvey, when a black bear ripped open the family's tent and dragged the Pleasant Grove boy away around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. Chilling screams of "leave me alone!" woke Sam's parents. But because they did not hear the bear, the family assumed the boy had been abducted by a human.

It wasn't until around 1:30 a.m. that police officials arrived and found that Sam had been killed by the bear. Representatives from the Division of Wildlife Resources then hunted the bear down and killed it.

That was the second time the DWR had pursued the bear in two days. On Saturday, the division chased the bear for more than five hours after campers said they had been attacked during the night. No one was injured in that encounter with the bear.

The fact that the DWR was so heavily pursuing the bear makes it strange that the animal returned to the original camp site and attacked so quickly. The DWR didn't expect any campers to be in the area.

A biologist for the DWR had been stationed in the site until 5 p.m. Sunday during the first bear pursuit, and there were plans to return to the site at first light Monday morning to set a trap for the bear and post signs, said Scott Root, Division of Wildlife Resources conservation outreach manager.