Maymont Park's 2 bears killed after bite

Why not just administer the treatment to the boy as a precaution and let the bear live? God I hate four-year-olds sometimes. And where were the kid's idiot parents during all this? Argh!

My sister lives in Richmond and apparently the city is PISSED about this. The park and the bears are very important to Richmond, and seeing them euthanized because of some lazy parent's callous carelessness has certainly drawn the city's ire. I can't say I blame them -- it'll be interesting to see how long it takes before the name of the parent is made public.

When I was in India about eight or nine years back, I was scratched on the forehead by a monkey. First thing my parents did was to call the doctor, and I got stitches and rabies shots as a precaution, because it wasn't known whether the monkey had rabies or not.

My question is, if rabies shots can be administered with no side effects to people who don't have it, why would they need to know if the bears had rabies? Why not just give the boy shots anyway?

Wanna hear the craziest part, from a Richmonder? The local news is reporting that the parent climbed a fence WITH the four-year-old child, in order to approach the bears. They then, (parent and child,) reached through a second barrier in order to feed the bears. I think the last part is speculation, but its all pretty infuriating. Nobody seems to be able to explain why they didn't test the kid, or administer shots as a precaution as Ooble suggested.
On a side note, I wish locals got this upset about the nightly murders. A little parental negligence seems to pale in comparison, sad though the death of the bears may be.