It's called 'nature'. It can be beautiful and serene, but sometimes it eats us. Welcome to life.

But if those who look after the campground spend the previous day looking for the bear because they believe it is a danger to campers, don't they have a duty to notify the very people they are trying to protect? It costs little to put up signs warning of a bear that has endangered other campers during the previous days.

Great, another "I didn't know the coffee was hot" group of people.

while i feel for the parents and their tremendous loss, they need to back off and stop trying to salve their wounds with the balm of the public trough.

The family wasn't warned that bears could be in the area???? Well duh! If you go camping in the US you may run into a bear. That should be common sense.
Nobody had to warn this family.

I agree you can't keep wildlife away from there home

Roger: The family was NOT camped in a campground.
They were camped in an un-authorized spot off the side of the road.
There were warnings, placed in actual campgrounds and at the entrance station at AF Canyon.

I think this was a tragedy, not a case of gov negligence.

Those who keep saying, "They weren't warned" insist on ignoring the fact that they couldn't even enter AF Canyon without seeing the Bear Warning. They couldn't enter the camp-groung without seeing a warning. Do we expect the forest service to mark every tree and bush or close the whole canyon for a bear they thought had left the area?

If they missed all these signs... is it really the state's fault?

Will winning a settlement change anything at this point?

I think the Forest Service has learned their lesson already (we don't need them to pay a big settlement). I think we will be seeing LOTS more camp-ground closures in the future if there is even a REMOTE chance there is a bear in the area.

One big difference between American Fork Canyon and other places is that there is a pay station at its entrance. If it is stationed by people, I see no reason why they shouldn't have mentioned that there is an ongoing bear problem that day. But, if the family entered the canyon after that station closed for the night, then it would seem to be less of an issue.

At the pay station, at the bottome of Amer.Frk Canyon, there are numerous signs--posted on the hut, itself, notifying ALL canyon users of bear danger. I have seen these signs everywhere I travel in the mountains. At regular intervals, up the canyon, there are signs, warning of the presence of bears. I fish up that canyon, and run into those signs constantly. So there is really no excuse for not knowing. It's kinda like going to Mickey D's and ordering HOT coffee, and then expecting the window attendant to tell you that the coffee is HOT.

The one thing that most people don't understand is that black bears are predacious toward humans. Unfortunately, that bear probably watched that little boy most of the day, waiting for an opportunity to strike. (read Gary Shelton's book about Bear Attacks.)

There are always on going wildlife problems up A.F. Canyon. If people would learn that wildlife were here first and we are invading their space. Did someone warn the deer, elk, squirrels and other animals that people were going to destroy their homes to build people houses or roads. Who's responsible for that so we can sue them too!