

WEST MILFORD — In its official 2010 bear population management report, the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Council claimed there had not been a fatal black bear attack in the state since 1852.

After the death of Darsh Patel, believed to have been fatally mauled by a 300-pound black bear in the Apshawa Preserve on Sept. 21, the DEP repeated the claim –– bear attacks are exceedingly rare events in New Jersey, the last known fatal attack having occurred in 1852.

But the 1852 fatal attack never actually happened –– not in New Jersey, anyway.

If an autopsy and investigation determines that Patel died as a result of a bear mauling, his death will represent the first fatal bear attack in recorded New Jersey history.

According to DEP spokesman Larry Hajna, the authors of the 2010 Fish and Wildlife report had based the 1852 mauling claim on an erroneous 2003 New Jersey Herald article.

That article, a retrospective look through the paper's archives, summarized a story that ran in the Herald on Sept. 11, 1852, describing the horrific death of a local 16-year-old orphan at the paws of an "enormous" and "vicious" bear.

The victim, Alden S. Rose, had gone to fetch some corn husks about 12 miles outside of "this place," which a reader would infer meant Newton, NJ, where the paper is based. The bear attacked Rose, leaving his partial remains to be found by a neighbor the following morning, the story claimed.

But the editors of the New Jersey Herald in 1852 made a critical mistake – they omitted the dateline from the wire report. Alden S. Rose actually lived around Little Rock, Arkansas, where the attack occurred.

"It was an Arkansas event and the story did run in our 1852 newspaper," NJ Herald Executive Editor Bruce Tomlinson told NJ Advance Media, adding that the dateline was not attached and the staff in 2003 compounded the error.

The paper issued a correction on Thursday, which ran in Friday's edition of the Sussex County daily, he said.

Meanwhile, authorities are still awaiting the results of Patel's autopsy, after a necropsy revealed the 300-pound bear was not malnourished or diseased.

West Milford Police Chief Timothy Storbeck said that two hikers told Patel and his four friends that an aggressive black bear had stalked them for about 10 minutes. The couple recommended that the Edison men not continue up the trail, but they ignored the advice, police said.

The inexperienced hikers from Edison soon encountered the black bear and took photos of the animal before it closed in on them, Storbeck said. The men panicked and fled in separate directions to escape from the bear. Patel's body was discovered about two hours after a friend called 911. Incident reports from the investigation describe multiple bite and claw wounds on the body.

A search of newspaper archives did not reveal any other documented accounts of fatal bear attacks in the state.

James Kleimann may be reached at jkleimann@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskleimann. Find NJ.com on Facebook.