Maine’s Portland Press Herald Reported TODAY: An 11-year-old boy from New Jersey shot and killed a 502-pound black bear in Bethel on Monday, one of the largest bears bagged in Maine in two years. Steven Myers Jr., a sixth-grader from Steelmantown, New Jersey, was hunting early in the morning with his father, brother, grandfather and others when the family’s team of hounds treed the gigantic male bear off Rabbit Road.
Mark Latti, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said the state does not keep records, but the unofficial record was set on Sept. 12, 2012, when Matt Knox of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, shot and killed a black bear in Greenville that weighed 699 pounds.
On Monday, the 11-year-old’s grandfather, Bruce Myers, who is a registered Maine Guide, and another guide tied the dogs off once they were certain the bear was not getting out of the tree – black bears are adept at climbing trees and coming back down.
The boy, who was armed with a 35 mm Remington rifle, said he fired one shot that hit the bear in the chest, killing it.
“I’ve been doing this (bear hunting) for 35 years and this has got to be one of the most exciting days of my life,” said Bruce Myers, 63. “To kill a bear that weighs 502 pounds, that’s pretty special.”
Steven Myers Sr. said he was proud of his son.
“At first I think he was stunned, but when the adrenaline finally wore off he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face,” Myers said in a telephone interview Monday night.
The family will likely get about 150 pounds of bear meat from the kill, and the animal’s hide will be turned over to a taxidermist.
A team of five men used a sled to haul the dead bear out of the woods onto a tote road, where the animal was placed in the flatbed of a pickup truck and driven to Bethel.
Sarah Lane and Jeremy Fredette, co-owners of Bethel Bait Tackle & More, tagged the bear. They determined that it weighed 502 pounds.
“The record is 699 pounds, but 502 pounds is very respectable,” said Jennifer Vashon, the state’s bear biologist. “It sounds like the experience of a lifetime for the boy.”
Vashon said the average weight for a female black bear is 200 pounds. Males typically weigh around 300 pounds. She guessed that the bear killed Monday by Myers was about 5 years old. Black bears can live as long as 30 years because they have no natural predators other than people.
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