The shooting of a bear that attacked an Australian tourist in the Canadian ski resort village of Whistler has sparked outrage among locals and animal lovers. The 25-year-old Australian suffered minor injuries when he was bitten on the leg by the black bear after a crowd converged on the animal to take pictures of it. The bear wandered into Whistler's Village Square, a popular site for tourists and locals, to look for food in garbage tins on Saturday. "A crowd had gathered around the bear and was taking pictures," Sylvia Dolson, of the Get Bear Smart Society, told Vancouver's The Province newspaper. "The fellow was in the way when the bear wanted to escape. "He kind of got snagged." Canadian conservation officers shot and killed the bear on Sunday when it appeared it was heading back into Whistler. The Australian's name was not released. "It was a minor injury," conservation officer Chris Doyle said of the Australian's injury. "The tourist was not hospitalised." Upset readers flooded The Province newspaper's website questioning why the bear was killed when it was members of the public that closed in on the animal. "These idiots were surrounding a wild animal to take bloody pictures and they got what they deserved - the bear fought back," one reader wrote. Another wrote: "Well this 'tourist' managed to get a death sentence pronounced on this bear". http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=641162

No article - But any animal that attacks humans should be "put down", since they will most-likely do it again. They may not have lost, but they have definitely lessened their fear of humans.

The bear should have been captured and relocated.

I totally don't raise an approval flag for killing wild animals that may wander close to areas with humans in them, however, I'm pretty sure that if this bear had seriously injured the tourist, or killed him, then people would have been outraged under the pretext that proper precautions were not taken to keep these sort of animals away. Somebody would have whined either way. Also, I read the article, and pardon my language but these people are retarded. A bear waltzes in there, you're not supposed to gather around it and take pictures of it, this will 100% freak the hell out of it, and I'm surprised it didn't do much worse than what it did. There are precautions to take when an incident such as this occurs, and one thing they emphasize is that if the animal feels you as a threat, you're going to get hurt. If people can't be anymore careful than this, it's pretty sad and I lament the turn of events. The bear was killed because these people were being totally asshat. I once read about a puma or something like that which attacked a women who was riding a bicycle on some trails in the woods. She was badly hurt, though it was clear that the puma was strayed from its habitual surroundings. They tracked and chased it for THREE days and killed it. With a helicopter and everything. Thing is, it was scared enough and was totally escaping back to where it belonged, I think this was a little excessive, and doesn't really fix the problem for future wildlife attacks. :/ I don't think this women, or the tourist in your article are really to blame, but it has to be said, a lot of these occurrences are ushered in by people themselves; like taking pictures of a bear. Reminds me of that part in Faces of Death where the guy comes out of his car with his camera, to take a picture of a bear that was there. The bear stands up on its back legs, which in bear language means; I'm giving you a chance to gtfo before I rip you in half. What does the guy do? He goes right up to it and flashes it in the face with his camera. Ultimately you can imagine what happened next. I know this doesn't answer your question very much, but it's peoples' behaviours that outrage me more a whole lot than what is being done to "remedy" the problem afterwards...if people were smarter, this sorta stuff wouldn't happen as much. Needless bloodshed for both humans and animals.

This is a sad story. There were clearly several mistakes made that could have otherwise changed the outcome. Whistler is located in a remote area, deep in the mountains and a natural habitat for bears, and other wildlife. Crowding in on any wild animal for the sake of a picture is stupid and the tourist got off lucky. Once a bear has tasted garbage and has found a good source for it, they will always come back for more. Instead of taking pictures someone should have alerted the rangers to tranquilize the bear and relocate it many miles away. Instead it was permitted to escape on its own. When it came back again, it could have been darted and moved away, but because it had injured a human, an overzealous conservation officer shot and killed the bear.

That is disgusting!! There was no reason to kill that poor animal!! All they had to do was back off and he would have run off back into the woods. When they saw it again trying to go back to the same place, it could have been diverted.

well first there are too many humans and the wild animals have no space left , this kind of accident will be more and more common ,soon there will be no more wild animals left and human will be in cages . humans only thick of themselves. the planet is for all living things . you idiots who put all the minuses without entering the debate are shit

Bears will be bears. They should never be killed for being a bear. Relocated yes. Tourists come to places to see the wild life and should realize wild things can happen. Very Sad.

I believe that what happened is pretty standard procedure. Wild animals that make a nuisance of themselves are relocated, but once they attack a human, they are put down.

The tourist was in the bear's territory. It is not the bear's fault that humans are taking over just about all of the land they have to live on.

I believe that the bear was known to frequent human areas and was already becoming a threat to others....and we have many bears that come into the city of Vancouver (60miles away from Whistler) and the bears are tranquilized and then relocated but often they keep returning to harass humans in the same area....There have been many injuries here from bear maulings.

I love animals too -- on my plate, with gravy. I've heard that bears are edible.