UPDATE: DNR Says Bear Found Dead In Northern Indiana Appears Hit By Car

Updated Aug. 20 at 6:10 p.m.

BRISTOL, Ind. (AP) — The carcass of a black bear found this week in far northern Indiana had many fractured bones, injuries that are consistent with being struck by a motor vehicle, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources said Friday.

The fractures were discovered during a necropsy at the Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Purdue University, DNR mammalogist Brad Westrich said.

"It’s a shame that Indiana’s fifth black bear in modern history met this fate,” Westrich said.

DNR officials found the carcass Wednesday morning along State Road 15 in the Elkhart County town of Bristol, near the entrance to the Indiana Toll Road, Westrich said.

The DNR had not received reports of black bears in the area since 2015 before finding this bear, the DNR said.

Hair and tissue samples will be analyzed to determine where the black bear originated. It was not the same black bear that visited southern Indiana earlier this summer, Westrich said. That bear probably moved on to Kentucky, based on confirmed sightings received from Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources.

Indiana once was home to black bears. Bear populations in neighboring states are expanding, and Indiana’s forests and hills, primarily in the southern portion of the state, provide excellent habitat for black bears.

Original post, Aug. 19

BRISTOL, Ind. (AP) — State wildlife officials are investigating after a black bear was found dead in far northern Indiana in one of only a handful of confirmed instances of the mammal in the state since the late 19th century.

Indiana Department of Natural Resource officials notified about the bear found its carcass Wednesday morning along S.R. 15 in the Elkhart County town of Bristol, near the entrance to the Indiana Toll Road, said Brad Westrich, a DNR mammologist.

He said a necropsy would be performed to investigate how the bear died and provide other information on its condition, The Elkhart Truth reported. The bear was in an advanced state of decomposition when it was found at the site a few miles south of the Michigan border. Westrich said.

“At this time, we don’t know if someone hit it on the toll road or how the bear died,” he said.

Black bears are rarely seen in Indiana. Westrich said there have been only a handful of confirmed bear sightings in Indiana since 1871, with this being just the fifth confirmed instance of the species in the state.

The most recent sighting was in June in southwestern Indiana. In 2015, a black bear was confirmed wandering through northern Indiana between Michigan City and South Bend.