It’s safe to say that Chris Keown was pretty freaked out after watching Leonardo Di Caprio get mauled by a bear in The Revenant.
So much so that when he saw a black bear near his Missouri home a few weeks later, he hunted and killed the animal – because he feared a Revenant-style attack on his eight-year-old son.
The 40-year-old pursued and shot the bear, a protected species in the US state, even after it ran away when he opened the front door.
Oh, and Keown said he would do it again if a bear is foolish enough to wander close to his property.
He told the St Louis Post-Dispatch : ‘I’m sorry that I did do it. My adrenaline was pumping.
‘About three weeks before that, we watched The Revenant and it was just going through my mind.’
Asked if he would kill the protected species again, Keown said: ‘Depends on where I see him. If I see him right here, I’m going to kill him.’
The factory worker said he was scared the animal would attack his son Hunter, who rides his bike and plays outside their house but was inside at the time of the bear sighting.
Keown said he ‘thought it was a grizzly’ and did not know black bears were protected. After shooting the bear while it sat in a ditch, he skinned it, leaving the head and hide in the woods and giving the paws and meat to a friend.
Larry Yamnitz, protections division chief for the Missouri Conservation Department, noted that bears are ‘afraid of humans’ and said ‘he should have let it go’.
Keown pleaded guilty and paid a $99.50 (£75) fine and $103.50 (£78) in court costs. Conservation agents seized the paws and meat when Keown was arrested. Missouri is home to an estimated 300 to 400 black bears.
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