Visitors to Alaska's Denali National Park this summer may be able to catch a glimpse of something you don't see every day: a three-pawed grizzly bear.
A picture of the bear shows it to be missing about half of its right front leg.
"We call him Tri-pawed," park biologist Pat Owen told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "He kind of hops around."
The bear, the first Owen has seen missing a paw in 23 years with the Park Service, was first spotted in the park last year, when the wound was still bloody, she told the paper. She wondered at that time whether the injury would prevent the bear from getting food, digging its winter den or defending itself.
But it seems to have done just fine, she said.
One person at the park even saw the bear leap a highway guardrail, Owen told the Daily News-Miner.
"They said he looked very agile. I don't think he has any trouble getting around," she was quoted as saying.
Owen said park officials don't know how the bear was injured, but did not think it was from a trap because the wound was a clean cut.
The Park Service won't track the bear and won't do anything special to help it, she said. While the grizzly is listed as a threatened species in the lower 48 states, there are about 30,000 grizzlies in Alaska, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
"For now, we'll let him do his thing and see what happens," Owen told the Daily News-Miner. But she said that if the grizzly is still around when visitor season opens on May 20, the park may post signs so rangers won't have to repeatedly answer the same questions about it.
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Nature compensates.
Good to see him getting around so well.
Old bear traps that are banned now can still be out there. Some people might still use them, besides collecting them. Some bear traps were banned because they didn't capture the creature, they maimed it by snapping what got caught in it right off!
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That is pretty cool that he was able to survive, but it BEARLY seemed like headline news.
Sarah Palin missing half a brain...
She didn't have anyone to hold the bear while she shot it...
Better than your whole missing brain.
No, she's just a bad shot from the chopper! But I dare say, the bear is most probably a lot smarter then Stupid Sarah.
Probably one of Nugents cripples.
First thing I thought of too, Grizzly missing half a leg; Grizzly Mom missing half a brain. Same with that pathetic daughter of hers, making fun of the children of the president just like Glenn Beck and Rush did.
You hit the nail on the head! What a useless, pathetic family. It makes you wonder if Palin, Lush, and Beck are all from the same gene pool on some distant planet.
Yogi reached into the wrong picnic basket.
What on earth could cut off the paw of a grizzly Other than a trap with a so-called "clean-cut"?!
My knife did .... you wouldn't want to eat a good bear like that all at once, now would ya?
It's BEARABLE.
This bear is getting through life just fine with disability payments. Humans need to stop being such cry babies and take note.
All those people you are talking about....im sure you are scared of. So if it was survival of the fittest. You would be the one asking for handouts.
Is this news? I thought this was a web site for news. Does anyone know of website for news. Maybe one that employs journalists?
It is enough to make you reply. You don't find it interesting that a bear is able to survive missing part of a leg?
Why is it missing half a leg? I'll guess a bear trap got her and she may have chewed it off. People are cruel.
people who dont read articles are more cruel cuz they make up their own reality then spread it
Best grizzly bear to get into a fight with
I love stories like this, nature is so adaptable.
Somewhere, someone in Alaska is munching on a nice bear paw steak right now. Mmmmmmm.