Two bears put down because of idiot parent

That parent should be chaarged with, let's see:

Child endangerment
Criminal Trespass
Cruelty to animals

For a start.

And the Zoo should sue for the cost of the bears plus additional damages.

Sadly, what will most likely happen is Idiot Parent will sue the Zoo.

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IDIOT parent!
Why in the world would you ever want your child to get closer to A BEAR?! HELLO!?!?!?!?! Can you say "wild animal" you moron?
I agree on charging the parent.

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I third that opinion. Once again, it's proven that common sense is NOT common.

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I am so torn with this story, which is why I wanted others that aren't as close to the actual story to chime in.

On one hand, the parent didn't report this directly to the park. The Health Department alerted the park, who were told by the hospital. In the parent's defense, he/she didn't report it (we are all hoping it was because of the problems it would create and the embarassment of not watching their child).

However, I am a member of this nature park. I pay a membership fee each year in order to support the park and it's animals. We go there many many times throughout the year, as I have gone all my life. The bears were a big attraction.

It sickens me that now there will be more expenses to repair fences that might have been breached. There is the expense of having the bears put down as well as to do tests for rabies. My membership fees should go to helping the facility, not this.

I am not sure what would make this right. I hate the idea of a lawsuit. I was also impressed by a representative for Maymont Park to have added that legal decisions have not been made yet, but that a lawsuit wouldn't bring the bears back.

So I am still a little torn, a lot heartbroken and my faith in parenting is a little shaken.

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Add me to the chorus of people saying "why wasn't the parent charged with something"?

That is just terribly sad.

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I remember this happened a couple years ago with a (Bengal? Siberian?) Tiger. I can't remember if it happened in Minnesota and so was just reported locally, but I was so sad that the Tiger had to be put down just to find out if it had rabies.

My son is only 3 months old and I cringe with pain when he gets his regular vaccines, so I can't imagine how I would feel if he had to undergo very painful rabies treatments. Even so, I think it would be worth it to keep an animal from dying just to spare him that pain. Especially if it had been my fault.

The previous poster said the parent didn't report it, I wonder did they offer to go through the rabies treatment to spare the bears?

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How sad. I agree that the idiot parent needs to be charged with something. Child endangerment, trespassing, something.

In my opinion, the bears shouldn't have been put down to see if they had rabies. It may sound kind of harsh, but if the kid came down with rabies, I'd call it natural selection.

We need more bears to keep idiot people in check.

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To my mind I think the lack of reporting makes the parent *more* negligent and the behaviour more reprehensible, not less.

I agree a lawsuit won't bring the bears back. But as Meredith pointed out, this is not what membership fees should be covering. The Idiot Parent bears sole responsibility for this tragedy, and should be held accountable for it.

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I'm not usually an animal rights person (I loathe PETA, and being in Va Bch has only enforced this), but scientists have not come up with a rabies test that doesn't necessitate killing the host in question? We don't have to put down the kid. If the kid/bears weren't showing any symptoms, and from what I understand it's not like the bears were high risk, why did they put the bears down.
I feel bad for the bears, the park, the other patrons, and yeah, the kid... but what kind of parent actually indulges their kid when there's danger or illegality involved. If the parent sues, I hope it gets thrown out of court!

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I agree, charge the parent.

Better yet, put the parent down...I think the parent is dangerous. At least the bears were in a controlled environment. The parent on the other hand is free to roam around, to cause harm to someone else.

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Does anyone - anyone - agree that the zoo should sue the parents? Sue for the loss of life of their animals, which certainly didn't deserve to die for this, but also for the loss of revenue, the loss of attraction, and how about good ol' pain and suffering? It's not humane to euthanize an animal. Everyone believes that is dignified and just when an animal is put down, well, it's not. It has it's own set of horrors attatched. And further more, these bears were being bears! Doing what they do! MINDING their business in their environment, which was INVADED by an unknown, and we all know the culpirts are, and they reacted like they were supposed to: as if they were threatened. It's not like the bears went into the house of this family and posed a threat. They were simply being bears at a nature preserve. Wasn't there a disclaimer anywhere that provided for the animals/zoo if their cages were breached? If anyone crosses the perimiter of an exhibit animal, well, they should just suffer the consequences. It seems society has forgotten that wild animals are like loaded guns: they can go off at any time. And why do we feel sorry for this idiotic parent and child... she should have her child taken away. I agree w/ another writer: she should be charged with child endangerment and punished to the fullest extent of the law. She gets NO points for not reporting it. All that says is how guilty she really is and if she truly felt bad? How about a protest against killing the animals???? May it remain on her conscious forever. Talk about a Darwin award.

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Don't get me wrong, I was outraged as well when I first learned of the story. My first thoughts went to lawsuit as well.

I was hoping (because I like to pretend people are generally good), that this person knew they did something stupid and was trying to avoid bringing attention to themselves and negative reactions/consequences to the park.

Yes, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered and I am sure that someone will mention 'child endangerment' at some point. Until the point when all the questions are answered, I refuse to go down the 'put down the parent' route.

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I thought I would pass along an update; the bears didn't have rabies.

From the http://nbc12.com website:

The test results have come in for those two black bears who were euthanized after one of them bit a four-year-old boy at Maymont Park. Both bears tested negative for rabies. All this, as many of you express outrage at the fact that the bears were killed.

A representative with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Julia Dixon talked with NBC12 Friday to further explain how they made the difficult decision. Dixon says, “Please understand this was so tough for all the people involved.”

It wasn’t an easy decision. Representatives from Maymont met with officials from Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Virginia Health Department, before deciding to euthanize the bears.

Here's why officials though it was in everyone's best interest. Dixon says, “This was the best alternative. And, it just wasn’t as easy or as cut and dry – why not give the shot to the kid to spare the bears.”

Animal experts have run into this problem before. They say there are certain guidelines when considering whether or not an animal should be put down. Dixon says, “Part of the information we shared around the table was: How could this happen? Confirming that it did happen. And looking at our options.”

The boy climbed a fence with one of his parents, to come in contact with the bears, leaving many of you to say that the bears weren't to blame. The question still remains, is there any way the bears at Maymont could have been kept alive? Dixon says, “We couldn’t say 100 percent that there was no chance this child could be exposed to rabies. We just couldn’t say that.”

The only time medical officials can perform a rabies test on a black bear is after it’s died. Again, test results just released show that neither bear had rabies.

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I was chatting with an online friend this morning about her family pet that had to be euthanized because it suddenly attacked without provocation.

She said the only choices available to her were to endure 12 days of rabies shots (for her family even though she was the only one attacked) while they wait to see if the animal develops symptoms or euthanize the animal and save her family an extremely painful experience.

As reluctant as I usually am to pass judgment without all the facts, to me it was beyond stupid.

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That poor kid, to have such an asshat for a parent. What in the world was that parent thinking? It makes me feel so sick when I hear of an animal being killed because of something a human did in order to provoke the animal into biting or mauling, usually because the animal was protecting themselves and/or their babies.

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I agree that the parent should be facing some sort of prosecution. This was child endangerment at the very least. I don't think the Zoo should press charges, or sue the parent. It would be negative press for them.

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I just looked back at my comment #14. I meant the child's parents were stupid, not my friend's decision.

You probably figured that out (I hope).

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Okay, here is some education for those who have never had the rabies vaccination. I talked to a coworker who was recently bitten by a stray dog and did have the vaccination. The vaccination is a series of 6 shots(it's not always necessary for all 6). The shots are no longer given in the stomach. They are given in the arm or meaty buttocks area. They are not anymore painful than a flu shot and once it is done it is done. So, the stigma of the "dreaded rabies shot" no longer exists. The girl in this case told coworkers (one is my aquaintance) this was not her first time feeding the bears. She told them that park officials let her son feed them on more than one occasion. Of course this was never put in the papers, why? Because it was a big lie to save face among her judgemental peers. More testament to this girl's character. And, boy did it work! Apparently she is attractive because every male coworker has gone to bat for her. My friend even got angry with me at my suggestion that she come clean before the public (admit her guilt, show her face, etc.) Infact, I would not be suprised to discover that she was too busy flirting with the park maintenance man during her sons "escape". Fact is she failed to do her parental duties and something bad resulted. Damages were incurred and it is her fault. Any other situation involving damages resulting from parental neglect or custodial responsibility would result in a lawsuit or atleast charges of neglect. For argument's sake... say it was a teacher with a couple of kids from school and one of the kids was the boy who got bit. What do you think the officials would do to the Teacher? You can bet the girl would be suing if it had been the boy instead of the bears who lost life. Why is this one so hard to follow-through on? It is no different than leaving your kid in the car while you go into the store all to find the car krept out into the busy street and caused an accident. DAMAGES because of Neglect equal criminal charges and a lawsuit. Period.

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I can't believe no one here has gone screaming at the health department yet! As a former employee, I know the policy ~ quarantine the animal for 10 days and start the vaccine on the person. If the animal doesn't show any additional signs of rabies, fine, stop the shots, let the animal return to it's home. (This is all assuming we're not talking about a repeatedly aggressive animal that has a history of vicious attacks or has seriously injured someone.) The child didn't even need stitches.

I've actually gotten paged by St Mary's ER about possible rabies exposures and we would assess the situation and usually start the vaccine at that point. The next five shots are given at the health department.

But back to my point ~~ during that three hour meeting where I can only imagine the degree of liability panic that was occuring or the ongoing belief of the 24 shots in the stomach was being bandied about, the health department SHOULD have been the voice of reason. Since when is it abnormal for a bear to nip (let's be honest, if it really "bit" it would have taken the kid's hand off) at something that sticks into his cage and smells of apple? What would even make them jump to the rabies conclusion??? If one of the bears had been attacked by a rabid raccoon or skunk as someone has suggested, then said carcass remnant should have been somewhere in the bear habitat. Rabid or not, the raccoon or skunk wouldn't have survived. And just to toss in a wee bit more logic, even rabid, why would a skunk or raccoon choose to attack a carnivore more than 10 times it's size when there are many other smaller equally boxed in animals to be had??? And as far as the bears being a danger to other humans, what, were they going to be rotated into the petting zoo while the goats were on vacation??? The only other humans that have contact with the bears don't have physical contact with the bears because they recognize the fact they the bears are wild animals and act as such.

Wilder is having hissy fit and the Times-Dispatch is describing this whole incident as Richmond's own Katrina (in terms of it being a complete fiasco of government operations.) I say fire the health department head and then keep on going until you run into someone who can manage to actually sit in a room and provide accurate, logical information about threats to public health in a calm and credible manner. If that person were at the infamous "three hour meeting" no one would ever have been searching for headless bear carcasses in a Chesterfield landfill.

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