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In a rare kind of attack, a bear killed a man in Crystal, New Mexico, on Thursday, local police said.
The police department for the Navajo Nation said officers within its Window Rock district received a call at about 1pm that a bear had attacked a man.
Authorities shot the bear, and the creature fled into woods near the scene of the attack. They said they ultimately found the bear and “neutralized” the animal.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family at this time,” the Navajo police department said in a Facebook post.
The Native American reservation’s police department said its criminal investigations department as well as its fish and wildlife department also responded to the scene of the fatal attack.
They neither identified the victim nor said what type of bear had killed him.
The police department said it “urges the public to stay away from potentially dangerous wildlife. If a bear is spotted, please call your nearest [police] District.”
Thursday’s fatal bear attack appeared to be the first such case in New Mexico since 2001, according to a comprehensive list with information about bear attacks. That 2001 case, meanwhile, was the first fatal New Mexico bear attack in a century, the Associated Press reported.
The victim in that case was Adelia Trujillo, who was killed by a 250lb male bear that broke into her house.
In 2020, a bear attacked a woman in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The 37-year-old woman and her husband were sitting on the deck at a ski lodge when it approached them.
The bear came within a foot of the couple and started chasing her and then attacked in the parking lot. Her injuries included “several broken bones, a collapsed lung, bite marks and scratches”, New Mexico wildlife authorities said at the time.
The woman in that case survived, according to KRQE, and authorities reportedly killed the bear.
North America generally has only a handful of fatal bear attacks annually. According to the North American Bear Center, a person’s chances of being murdered by a fellow human is 60,000 times greater than dying at the hands of a black bear.
National park service statistics indicate that the chances of being injured by a bear is exceedingly rare at one in 2.1m.
