A Montana man was attempting to find shed antlers close to Wolf Creek on April 25 when a grizzly bear charged him. The person drew his handgun and shot the bear mid-charge, killing it, based on Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The person’s id stays unknown, because the incident remains to be below investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He was not injured throughout the encounter and was not carrying bear spray on the time.
MFWP says the person was shed looking on non-public land and strolling alongside a snow-covered ridge with the wind at his again when he first noticed grizzly bear tracks within the snow. He had two canines with him. He continued strolling and, a couple of minutes later, noticed the bear standing roughly 20 yards away close to the highest of the ridge.
“The bear dropped to all 4 legs and charged the person, who drew his handgun and fired 5 pictures from distance about 30 toes to 10 toes, grazing the bear with one shot and hitting and killing it with one other,” MFWP stories.
Throughout their preliminary investigation, state wildlife officers inspected the grizzly, an grownup feminine that weighed roughly 300 kilos and was estimated to be round 12 years outdated. In addition they discovered a single cub close by, which was captured and brought to a wildlife rehabilitation middle in Helena.
The world the place the incident happened falls inside the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which is one in all six grizzly bear recovery zones within the Decrease 48 designated by the USFWS. The NCDE covers roughly 9,600 sq. miles in north-central Montana and is house to greater than 1,000 grizzlies, based on the newest estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey.
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That is the primary identified occasion of a grizzly bear being killed in self-defense within the Decrease 48 in 2024. It comes at a time when bears throughout the Western U.S. are beginning to go away their winter dens, a few of them with cubs in tow.
Final 12 months, there have been at the least seven recorded incidents in Montana and Idaho involving hunters and anglers who killed grizzly bears in self-defense. One of many earliest incidents of 2023 happened in early June, when a black bear hunter was charged by a grizzly bear within the Madison Vary southeast of Ennis. The hunter shot and killed the bear with a handgun.