12-year-old boy shoots bear dead, rescues his father
A 12-year-old boy fatally shot a black bear as it was mauling his father in Wisconsin, according to wildlife officials.
Owen Beierman, 12, took aim at the bear as it pinned down his dad during a legal hunting trip. “Owen was a hero,” Ryan Beierman, 43, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “He shot that bear and killed it on top of me.”
The attack occurred in Siren, Burnett County, on 6 September, as they were hunting near their family cabin and spotted a 200-pound (91 kg) bear. Owen shot and injured the animal, which ran off into dense forest.
As they pursued it, the bear charged at Ryan from about six feet (1.8 m) away. He fired eight shots at the bear with his pistol but missed. “The bear bit me in the abdomen, arm and leg,” he recounted. “I started pistol-whipping him, and it felt like I was striking a brick wall.”
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Ryan described the moment Owen fired his rifle: “I saw the flash from the muzzle of the boy’s rifle. I was flat on my back and could feel the bullet going through the bear.”
He required stitches to reattach skin to his cheek and had puncture wounds on his arm and legs. Officials noted that bear attacks are rare, with only nine reported in Wisconsin between 2013 and 2022.
