COMPARING BEAR DEATHS

Black bears once roamed nearly all of Canada, the United States and northern Mexico. Today, the species’ range has shrunk drastically but the bear is still found in at least parts of 40 states, much of Canada and northern Mexico.

Compared to other states, Arizona, with a population of about 3,000 black bears, is on the low end of human-bear conflicts, Phoenix said. Since 1996, Game and Fish has recorded 11 human attacks by black bears. A woman in Pinetop was seriously attacked while walking her dog in 2011 and three bear attacks were recorded in the Payson area in 2012. Last summer, Game and Fish officers killed a black bear while it attempted for the second time to break into a cabin on Hart Prairie.

Statewide, Phoenix said Game and Fish probably euthanizes between 10 and 20 adult male bears or return offending female bears each year. Phoenix estimated about five nuisance bears have been killed in the Flagstaff area in the past decade, he said. The majority of bears the department deals with locally, which ranges from two to nine each year, are females with cubs and yearlings that are caught and then released in locations far from town, Phoenix said.