COLUMBIA TWP. – The death of Brent Kandra, who was attacked by a bear in a barn on Marks Road last week, was due to an undisclosed number of wounds from the attack, according to the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office.

“What killed him was sharp and blunt trauma,” said coroner’s spokesman Powell Caesar.

He declined to disclose how many wounds Kandra suffered after being attacked by a bear named Iroquois, who was euthanized on Saturday by a veterinarian.

Meanwhile, exotic animal enthusiast Sam Mazzola, who owned the black bear that killed Kandra, isn’t the only person in Lorain County who has a state permit to own exotic animals native to Ohio.

Two other people in Lorain County own bears – John Matus of Gifford Road in Henrietta Township and William Teter of state Route 18 in Brighton Township, according to Doug Miller, a law enforcement officer for the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Another Lorain County resident, Hank Berger, of Quarry Road in Pittsfield Township, owns two bobcats, and other residents own smaller animals such as raccoons, foxes and skunks, Miller said.

Mazzola has seven or eight bears, as well as three raccoons, two foxes and a skunk that have permits through the state, Miller said.

Mazzola also has animals that do not require an Ohio permit, including four tigers, a lion and between 30 and 40 wolves, according to Sgt. Donald Barker of the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office.

Matus, Teter and Berger could not be reached for comment Monday about their animals.

A woman living near Matus said the bear is in a cage and has never gotten out. The neighbor, who declined to be quoted by name, said the bear is declawed and had its canine teeth removed.

Mike Richley, a neighbor living on state Route 18 near Teter, said Teter got the bear cub when it was the size of a kitten, and it is very cute.

The bear grew to be several hundred pounds and lived in a corn crib, where it could be seen on a chain and sometimes wearing a muzzle, Richley said. He hasn’t seen the bear for a while and said he doesn’t think it lives on the property anymore.

A neighbor living on Quarry Road said he knows Berger has the bobcats, but they have never gotten free.

One of Mazzola’s neighbors, Margo Dodge, 83, said she hopes Mazzola will be required to get rid of his animals before something else happens. Generally, Dodge said, she believes in “live and let live,” but her late husband was wrestled to the ground and pinned for 20 minutes in 1998 by one of Mazzola’s bears that got free.

“He was bruised and sore and had to go to the hospital,” she said. “I’m against having these animals in captivity – I think animals should be free.”

She said Mazzola’s compound isn’t good for the neighborhood.

“Have you ever listened to 30 wolves when one of them starts howling and the others join in?” Dodge asked. “You grind your teeth and your hair falls out – he’s the neighbor from hell.”

Kandra’s death drew the attention of Born Free USA, which has an interactive database of deadly and dangerous captive wild animal incidents.

Since 1990, there have been 1,379 animal incidents, including the attack by the chimpanzee Travis in Connecticut that decimated a woman’s face, according to Adams Roberts, executive vice president of the organization.

“You can take an animal out of the wild and put it in captivity, but you can’t take the wild out of the animal,” Roberts said.

Born Free USA’s captive wildlife database includes 899 exotic “pet” incidents; 79 performing captive exotic animal incidents; and 227 zoo incidents. The state with the most incidents overall is Florida. The top kind of animal is reptile. The human death toll to date is 68.

The database does not yet include Kandra’s death.

The most recent Ohio incidents listed in the database include when a monkey dashed up a utility pole in Medina in July 12 after a man transporting animal carcasses got in an accident. The monkey was recaptured.

On July 23, police in Dayton confiscated a bear cub tied to a fence and turned it over to the Dayton Humane Society.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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