Mike Kuhns

Pocono Record

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3:06

Editor’s Note: This story was written by the Pocono Record in 2010 about a controversial bear killed in Bushkill during hunting season.

For David Price, killing a record-setting black bear was supposed to be the event of a lifetime.

Instead, it has been a time of anger and bewilderment.

On Monday, Price, three brothers, a cousin and a friend killed a 17-year-old bruin that tipped the scales at an estimated live weight of 875 pounds, the largest ever on record in Pennsylvania.

Since then, many online forums have questioned the kill, accusing the hunting party of killing a beloved bear known as “Bozo” that was befriended by a Bushkill local, Leroy Lewis, who essentially raised it.

Bozo’s death sparked an uproar among animal lovers, locals and others who decried what they said amounted to the slaying of a wild-animal-turned-domesticated-pet.

“With all the bad publicity, I’m not feeling very good about myself,” said Price of Cresco, a 1986 Pocono Mountain High School graduate. “This may be the peak of my hunting career, and it’s tainted, it really is.”

On Monday, Price got a phone call at work from his younger brother and cousin who said they saw a large bear and wanted help hunting it on the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area land just north of Fernwood Resort.

“The end result was the bear came out and I shot it,” Price said. The bear was shot six times total, but Price’s arrow — he was hunting with a crossbow — killed the bear.

Price and his brothers had known of this large bear in the area for years, but had never seen it during hunting season. It was last tagged in New Jersey by game officers over the summer, but hadn’t been seen by either state’s officers since.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission believed the bear had traveled back and forth across the Delaware River but were not sure of its whereabouts because it had never been tagged in Pennsylvania.

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“When you go in the woods you don’t expect to see a Volkswagen bus coming through,” Price said. “I had to rub my eyes to believe what I was seeing.”

By 3:30 p.m. Monday, the bear was dead and the group of hunters was celebrating their kill. They had contacted the game commission, which sent out an officer to record the bear’s death.

Officer Mark Kropa took a scale from a check station and went to weigh the bear, Northeast Regional Director Steve Schweitzer said. Schweitzer said two different teams were at the site where the bear was killed, determining what happened during the course of the hunt.

“It was harvested legally, in our opinion,” Schweitzer said.

But PoconoRecord.com reader comments weren’t so forgiving.

This bear was well known for getting into garbage bins near Fernwood. It was also known by the game commission and many in the community that Lewis, 71, befriended the bear years ago, feeding it often. Lewis was given a written warning in October for feeding the bear, Schweitzer said.

Many posts on the Web accused Price of shooting a “tame bear.” The reaction sent Price and his hunting partners reeling.

“I’m definitely a little angry,” Price said. “I’m a little disappointed in everybody’s attitude. I enjoy hunting more than anything, and now this is tainted by it.”