Hadn't seen this until today  

Shawano couple hits big black bear with car



TOWN OF RICHMOND (WLUK) — A Shawano couple wasn't hurt, but their car was totaled when they hit a black bear on Highway 29 Thursday night.

Gina Damveld says her parents were coming home from church choir practice around 9 p.m. April 14 when they hit the bear in the Town of Richmond.

They were driving a Lincoln Town car. Gina believes if they were driving a smaller car, it would have been much worse.

The bear wasn't found until the next day.

It weighed about 520 pounds.

FOX 11 spoke with the DNR Monday, it tells us this is a big bear for this time of year.

FOX 11 first heard of the bear accident on the Gresham Bear Hunters Facebook page.

This post is from the Gresham Bear Hunters Facebook page on Monday, April 18:

COURTESY: Gresham Bear Hunters Facebook page: Road kill bear update: Cooper "officially" weighed the Hwy 29 bear(with head attached). 520 lbs for a spring bear. Looking at the research this would equate to a conservative minimum fall weight of 625 lbs+. Bear records are by skull measurement. Weights are rarely recorded. The heaviest known Shawano co bear is 736 lbs by Chad Maves a few years back. Neat bear. They do have a road kill division for measurements if the nature center wants an official measure(it may very well be in the top 10). There is a few locals who are certified measurers.

Biggest one I saw hit was on the land I managed for many years for a big land holding company. I also was involved with the State's (PA) bear program as a biologist for 6 years at the time.

I get this call at around 2am. It's the local police and the local excavator guy, also on the township board. Guy swerved to avoid hitting the bears and said..."I knew it was too late, so I tried to at least hit the little one.

The dead bear weighed 701 lbs.

It ran into the swamp along side the road and down by a creek. Bears aways crossed there around this sweeping curve down the mountain. They wanted to know the laws about driving Kenny's 4WD backhoe into the swamp/wetlands to retrieve the dead bear. And to let me know they wanted to retrieve it. A courtesy call.....and they both knew I did work with G. Alt, the bear expert.


Looking at the little pick up, it was amazing the guy was walking around and alright. The world record was shot on our land and held the record for a few years until one in NC beat it out by a few pounds. I was 150 yds away patrolling our land when it was shot. 826 lbs.

Bears are cool.....Hitting one with your vehicle?....Not so much