Authorities say a black bear killed a 16-year-old runner while he was competing in an Alaska race on Sunday.
Patrick Cooper was competing in the juniors division of the Robert Spurr memorial hill climb race between Anchorage and Girdwood when he veered off the route around the halfway point and encountered the bear.
Brad Precosky, one of the race directors, said Cooper tried to contact his family by phone and tell them that he was being chased by the animal.
Officials attempted to locate Cooper, whose body was found about a mile up the path, at an elevation of 450 metres (1,500ft).
State park staffers were scouring the area on Monday looking for the bear, state fish and game spokesman Ken Marsh said.
Sunday’s attack was believed to have been a rare predatory move, not a defensive action such as when a female bear will protect her cubs, he said.
“It’s very unusual,” Marsh said of the mauling. “It’s sort of like someone being struck by lightning.”
“I’ve been running in the mountains for 30 years,” said Precosky. “People come down off the trail and say they’ve run into a bear. Sometimes that means nothing. Other times, it’s really serious. Like this.”
Alaska state troopers said that the boy’s remains were airlifted from the scene. A park ranger shot the 100kg-plus (250lb) bear in the face, but it ran away.
The three-mile race was being run for the 29th year in succession, over a course that takes in heavily wooded terrain. Runners had reported seeing several bears on Sunday. “There was a brown bear sighting, there was a black bear with cubs sighting,” Precosky said. “We didn’t know which was which.”
Later Monday, a second fatal mauling at the hands of a black bear was reported nearly 300 miles northeast of Anchorage. Officials with an underground gold mine reported a contract employee hired to take geological samples was killed and another injured in a black bear attack.