A DNA test has confirmed that Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials in August killed the bear that mauled a 51-year-old jogger over the summer in an Anchorage park.
Eleven days after Clivia Feliz was attacked, biologists made a decision to shoot a sow grizzly with two cubs feeding on a moose kill in the yard of a Stuckagain Heights home.
Based on a description provided by Feliz and photographs taken by remote cameras along the Rover's Run Trail in Far North Bicenntennial Park, the biologists believed they had a solid identification of the bear that attacked the jogger.
It was on Rover's Run Aug. 8 that Feliz and her dog were at first chased by a pair of young grizzlies and then she was attacked by their mother. Prior to that incident, other runners and mountain bikers had also reported being chased by a sow with two cubs.
Distinctive markings on one of those cubs led to a strong belief that the bear biologists shot on a moose kill more than a week later was the unusually aggressive sow, but officials didn't get a positive confirmation of the bear's identity until this week.
Saliva and hair taken from the bear matched the bear saliva on Feliz's shirt, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Sandra Talbot, a research geneticist and director of the Molecular Ecology Laboratory for the USGS here, said she believes this might be the first time DNA has been used to identify a bear involved in a mauling.
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