Field Reports: Bear attacks woman in Ferry County
From staff reports
A black bear injured a hiker in Ferry County on Sunday while she was hiking with her dogs.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement that the woman was on private property near Mink Creek Road with her two dogs when she was charged by the bear.
WDFW said her injuries were not life-threatening. She was treated and released from a Spokane hospital on the same day.
WDFW officers interviewed the woman and found that her dogs got between two black bears. One of the bears chased the dogs back toward the woman and charged her.
The bear that charged was believed to be a female. On Monday, WDFW officers, a wildlife specialist for Stevens and Ferry counties and houndsmen found and killed a 120-pound black bear near the site of the attack.
After it was killed, they found that the bear was a male, and not the one involved in the incident, according to WDFW.
They tried to find the bear responsible but failed. At the landowner’s request, they gave up the search.
WDFW said the meat from the bear that was killed will be donated to the U.S. Air Force.
WDFW sees increase in reports of warts on deer
Wildlife officials in the Spokane area are seeing an increase in the numbers of reports of deer with sores on them.
Staci Lehman, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson, said agency staffers have been receiving reports of deer with wart-like sores in the area for several weeks.
The warts are not a sign of chronic wasting disease, the always-fatal deer, elk and moose condition that was discovered for the first time in Washington this summer.
Instead, the warts could be symptoms of something different. A WDFW webpage dedicated to growths and warts on deer offer two possible explanations: papillomas and caseous lymphadenitis.
Caseous lymphadenitis causes lumpy swellings and absesses in the head, neck and groin of deer. Papillomas are large, visible warts. They’re growths on the skin, and will eventually outgrow their blood supply and fall off.
Neither condition poses a threat to humans.