Police seek driver who hit, killed black bear
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GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan (WNEM) — Police are looking for the driver who crashed their vehicle into a black bear, killing the animal on I-75 in Genesee County on Monday.
It’s certainly not every day that you see a bear roaming around Flint-area neighborhoods and people who live nearby are shocked.
“I think it’s really really sad that a black bear was so far south,” said Gidget Konieczka
Konieczka is an independent Herbal Life distributor and wellness coach at Simply Nutrition on beeches road in Genesee county. It’s just a stone’s throw away from where a black bear met its demise on I-75 early Monday morning.
“I wonder why it was here you know?” Konieczka said.
Holly Vaughn is a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Vaughn says while rare, black bear sightings in Genesee County aren’t unheard of.
“This particular bear was more than likely a young male out of his range just looking around,” Vaugn said.
Vaughn tells us the last black bear sighting in the area occurred four years ago. Now the DNR will analyze the deceased bear to get some answers.
“Certainly we know it was hit by a car right? But was there something else going on with this bear? They’ll also pull a tooth and get an approximate age for the bear. So that will help us understand a little bit more about what it was doing in this part of the world.”
Vaughn said there could be other bears around here.
“Bring in your bird feeders. Bring in your trash cans, anything that might be really attractive to a bear even pet food,” she said.
Konieczka tells me this incident gives her something else to consider when she hits the road.
“There are other things besides deer, or dogs, or other animals that get out of people’s yards, that there are bears and such still around in the area,” she said.
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