And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Not too happy to see this. zdero1 is right though, it’s more or less all of our faults. the collective negligence of all who entered this animals home grounds put it in danger by not taking the correct precautions with their foods. this was likely a camper or jeeper who happened to be carrying and felt threatened by the bear’s presence, which was likely brought about by said camper or jeeper’s food stinking up the joint.
Now there’s a dead bear contaminating the water sources up there so if you do go up there keep that in mind.

Very sad to see the predictable played out in such a fashion.

Well, if it’s handled anything like the black bear that killed my friend’s goat and charged the guy that came across the carnage, the forest service will do this: skin the bear, remove the paws, head, and gall bladder (Chinese black market demand). They left the rest for my friend to use. Since this one in decomposing, I don’t know what they will do.

Can you confirm that the bear was killed by a gunshot? Is that a guess, or did you see evidence of a bullet? This is sad regardless.

Confirmed it was a gunshot, single entry wound on left torso, definitely a larger caliber single bullet, not shotgun. Looked like a .40 or larger. Gas/fluid was bubbling out of the hole due to decomposition.

The creek/bear were adjacent to a camp site that was strewn with garbage.we cleaned up the site on our way out.

My guess is that the camper walked up on the bear going through the site. Very sad as this is easily preventable by hanging food and following standard wilderness camping practices.

This just didn’t have to happen. Come on people, you are in the woods, don’t leave temptation laying around for creatures like this one...

Just didn’t have to happen.