On Sunday morning, a driver in Massachusetts lost control of his car, hit a guardrail several times, and went off the road down an embankment. In the process, the driver was apparently “either fully ejected or partially ejected” from the vehicle. The driver was killed in the accident, and our hearts go out to his family.
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Here’s where things took an odd turn: When first responders arrived on the scene, they found the accident victim’s body some way away from the wreck and noticed a bear in the vicinity – and the beast had apparently dragged the body a short way from the accident scene.
Daniel Ducharme, 31, lost control of his car on Route 91 in Hatfield Sunday morning, striking the guardrail multiple times before hurtling off the road and down an embankment, Boston25 News reported .
Ducharme is thought to have been killed in the accident — and was “either fully ejected or partially ejected” from his 2016 Honda Civic, CBS News added, citing Massachusetts State Police.
Another driver alerted police to the remains of the wreck off the roadway around 11 a.m.
“When first responders reached the scene, the deceased male occupant of the vehicle was outside the car and a bear was observed in the woods in the vicinity of the scene,” State Police said, suggesting that the animal had dragged the driver’s body there.
“Evidence suggests the bear at some point had made contact with the victim’s body.”
It’s unclear what is meant by “…the bear at some point had made contact with the victim’s body.” Granted, euphemisms are commonly used in situations like this, and with good reason; Mr. Ducharme’s family is no doubt suffering enough as it is without graphic details being made public.
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The bear could have just dragged the body that short distance. Or, it may have fed on the body. Either is not only possible but likely. Bears are omnivorous and very opportunistic feeders, and they spend every minute of the warm weather preparing for sleeping through the cold weather, and that preparation involves eating as much as possible. High-protein sources, like meat, are especially valuable, and bears will readily scavenge. Scavenging, after all, takes less effort than predation, and for wild carnivores, efficiency is everything.
Bears can be dangerous to humans, just like any large predator. There is an excellent book on the topic. Stephen Herrero’s “Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance” is pretty much the benchmark; I have a copy of the first edition and highly recommend it to anyone who lives in bear country, which now encompasses much of the United States. While grizzlies still stick to the wilder places, the smaller black bears do very well around human settlements. Like coyotes, another predator that does well around people, black bears are smart, adaptable, and able to make a living in almost any kind of landscape.
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Normally, if for any reason a bear has ended up feeding on a human, the bear is destroyed, and normally that’s a good policy; when a big predator starts associating humans with food, it usually doesn’t end well. In this case, though, I’m inclined to cut the bear some slack. It’s not even sure if it actually fed on the body, and from the account, the bear was, after all, just being a bear.