Bear killed in collision with vehicle
WINFIELD — A black bear was struck and killed by a motorist on U.S. Hwy. 27 here shortly before midnight Thursday night, the second such incident to occur in Scott County in the past year.
According to an accident report filed by Winfield Police Department Officer Rob Reed, the motorist — identified as Brandon Perry, 24, of Pine Knot — was northbound on U.S. Hwy. 27 when the bear ran in front of his Nissan Frontier pickup truck, making a collision unavoidable.
Perry was reportedly on his way home when the accident occurred, just north of Poplar Lane’s intersection with Hwy. 27. The impact caused Perry’s vehicle to spin out of control, crossing the southbound lane of the roadway before coming to rest on an embankment. Perry was uninjured in the accident. The bear was killed on impact. The carcass was taken by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Reed’s report indicated that Perry’s vehicle sustained “severe” damage in the collision. The bear was described as being large, around 300 pounds.
While black bears have occasionally been seen inside Scott County over the years, there was not a sustainable population of black bears in the area until the mid-1990s, when TWRA and the National Park Service teamed up for a reintroduction program in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Although there have been no releases of black bears for over a decade, the animals have increased in number, and interactions with humans have become common over the past several years.
Last summer, a similar accident occurred on Hwy. 27 just south of the Oneida city limits, when a motorist struck and killed a bear near Oral Drive in the High Point area.
Earlier this year, a Scott County man was convicted of unlawfully killing a bear in the Pioneer area.
Big South Fork officials estimate the black bear population inside the park’s boundaries to be between 40 and 50 animals. But there are an increasing number of bears reported outside the park. In recent months, there have been reports of bear sightings in the Brimstone, Elgin, Pine Creek, Brewster Mountain and Winfield communities.