Not having a pistol was no help to them.

Yellowstone-area bear attack underscores guns-in-parks effort
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner ^ | 28 July, 2010 | Dave Workman

Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 6:02:27 AM by marktwain

The political effort leading to adoption last year of a new statute allowing defensive firearms to be carried in national parks got a major affirmation – albeit tragic – Wednesday morning when a bear rampaged through a campground near Yellowstone National Park, killing one person and injuring two other campers.

One can probably knock on wood that this did not happen in one of Washington's three national parks, which are currently at the height of the tourist season and they are loaded with campers who may not understand "bear country etiquette." The Seattle Times ran a story about this attack from the Associated Press.

This attack occurred at Soda Butte campground in Montana’s Gallatin National Forest, just northeast of the park. That it did not happen inside the park may be a technicality, since the last time anyone checked, bears do not read maps, operate GPS units or really care where they were when they did something. One woman reportedly suffered severe lacerations on her arms, and a second man was bitten on the leg.

"Tents were smashed in the 4 a.m. attack that left a male dead at the Soda Butte campground. A female suffered severe lacerations from bites on her arms, while another male was bitten on his calf and taken to a hospital in Cody, Wyo."

The controversy over guns in parks centered on crime, while essentially ignoring the potential that an animal attack could be the prime reason for packing. Opponents of the change have distorted what it would do for months, which we discussed here. Even KING 5 News sort of fell into that morass. Earlier this year, a hiker armed with a .45-caliber pistol fatally shot a bear that attacked him and his female companion in Alaska’s Denali National Park

sow and 3 cubs were trapped in the area last night.
havn't heard if the dna matches.
gonna kill all 4 if so,
man that was killed was fed on.

Well, this is what happens when we can't hunt Grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone area. They have lost all fear of man all together. Sad thing is were going to loose four grizzlies from our population because some dumb ass probable left some food out and the bears smelled it and came to the campground looking for food. And this man lost his life for no reason...

Steve

steve - having access to more-local news, my udnerstanding is that the guy did everything as right as possible. if i am wrong, i am wrong, but that's my understanding.

same goes for the cubs - the sow is going to be put down, but there is a chance for the cubs, even though a slim one. the report is that they most likely won't be going back into the wild.

tasunkawitko

I'm sure you are correct the gentlemen did do everything right. I'm betting some campers in that campsight left some food out to attrack that bear(s). Sad story all the way around.

Thanks

Steve

I have done some back country fishing in Yellowstone and have always been looking over my shoulder. Never encountered a Griz but I would have enjoyed myself more if I would have had my 45-70 guide gun along for the ride.

No charges to be brought against grizzly slayer
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — The National Parks Service will not pursue charges against a hiker who shot and killed a grizzly bear while hiking in Denali National Park two months ago, saying the man's actions were justified.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the North Pole man told authorities he shot the bear after it charged his girlfriend while the two were hiking up Tattler Creek on May 28.

Park spokeswoman Kris Fister says the evidence collected by rangers consists with the description of the incident.

The shooting is believed to be the first time a hiker shot and killed a bear in Denali. The shooting happened three months after Congress approved a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.
(Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)


When you don't disarm the victim, you don't have victims.

dna matched to the sow,they cut her head off the other day.
cubs are going to the zoo in billings.

[quote]dna matched to the sow,they cut her head off the other day.

Man makes the mistake, and the bears pay for it. Like I said earlier if we could hunt them this shit could be avoided.

Steve

I see Steve has brought in the Envio Wackos idea that it is allways the humans fault. That idea as been promoted by the wakos years to protect the bears and to take away one very good reason to be armed in the woods.

If you take a away the idea of self defense against critters you lose very valuable reason to run around the woods armed.

Sounds to me like a predatory attack they eat part of the guy they killed.

The more research I do on bear attacks the more I decided that some bear think that we are food.

Soft pink, no hair, no claws, no teeth and can't run very fast. The ideal prey.

Yes allowing hunting gets rid of the most arguessive bears and makes the rest afraid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_tra...l_bear_mauling_death

4th bear caught after deadly MT campground attack


By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer Matthew Brown, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 30, 3:24 pm ET
COOKE CITY, Mont. – The fourth grizzly bear believed involved in a triple mauling at a Montana campground has been captured, with DNA tests due Friday that could confirm the family of grizzlies killed a Michigan man and injured two other people.

A sow and two of her three cubs had been trapped by Thursday, with a year-old cub found in a trap early Friday. The bears — crying and scratching at the steel sides of traps — were taken from the Soda Butte campground in a three-truck convoy.

Their departure brought relief among residents and visitors in Cooke City, an old mining town just outside Yellowstone National Park that was jolted by the Wednesday attacks on three people as they slept in separate tents.

"They captured them? All of them?" asked Linda Olson. The 60-year-old nurse from Minnesota let out a sigh when she learned the answer was yes.

The cubs will likely go to a zoo, said Chris Servheen, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator. The sow will have to be killed so officials cand conduct an autopsy to determine if any physical ailments or conditions caused her to attack the campers.

Officials said they won't decide the fate of the bears until they see the results of DNA tests.

Authorities said the bear family, under the tutelage of the mother, specifically targeted campers — a sharp departure from the usual behavior of grizzlies attacking only when threatened or surprised.

Evidence indicated all three cubs likely participated in what Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard called a sustained attack on Kevin Kammer of Grand Rapids, Mich. He was pulled from his tent and dragged 25 feet. At least one of the bears fed on his body.

Despite the unusual nature of the attacks, there also was a realization in Cooke City that bear run-ins would continue. Three million tourists a year visit the remote and wild Yellowstone region of Montana and Wyoming, which has an estimated 600 grizzlies.

"It's a great spot, but you have to realize we're in their home. We're part of the food chain," Pat Froelich, 75, said as she watched the trucks haul the grizzlies from town as she ate breakfast at the Bear Claw Bakery.

Fibers from a tent or sleeping bag were in the droppings of the captured bears, and a tooth fragment found in a tent appears to match a chipped tooth on the sow that weighs more than 300 pounds.

"Everything points to it being the offending bear," said Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The two other victims, Deb Freele of London, Ontario, and Ronald Singer of Alamosa, Colo., were initially hospitalized in Cody, Wyo. Singer, 21, was treated and released. Freele was scheduled to have surgery Friday for bite wounds and a broken bone in her arm, her husband Bill Freele said.

He expected her to be released from the hospital sometime this weekend.

Freele said his wife had wanted to carry on with their trip but reconsidered after having nightmares about the attack.

"Right now, she just wants to see the kids," he said.

Deb Freele is a native of Michigan and knew Kammer but did not realize he was in the same campground or that he was the victim until she saw his picture with a story about the maulings, her husband said.

Bill Freele was in Cooke City on Friday retrieving the couple's camping equipment. He believes the mother bear should be killed "because it tasted humans."

He was fine with placing the cubs in a zoo. "Just don't tell me where it is," he added.

Messages left Thursday for Kammer's mother-in-law and brother-in-law in Michigan were not returned.

Singer and his mother Luron Singer did not immediately return e-mail messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Luron Singer told The Denver Post that her son, a former high school wrestler, had been camping with his girlfriend.

He started punching the bear when he felt it biting his leg, she said. His girlfriend screamed, and the bear ran away.

"He is doing fine," Luron Singer told the newspaper. "He went fishing today."

Freele said she couldn't understand why the bear attacked her, because she posed no threat.

"If it was something that I had done — if I had walked into a female with cubs, and startled her, and she attacked me — I can understand that," she said. "She was hunting us, with the intention of killing us and eating us."

All the victims did the right thing, and there was no telling why the bear picked out those three tents, Sheppard said.

___

AP Writers Amy Beth Hanson and Matt Volz in Helena contributed to this report from Helena. AP Writer Ben Neary contributed from Cheyenne, Wyo.

p dog shooter

Every time I am watching a so called "documentary" or, indeed, any film showing pewople deep in back country - I find myself looking for the rifle being carried by at least -someone maybe out of view of the camera? You may not have seen it in your area but this guy, Hannah (I just forget the first name) who used to be on Mutual's Wild Kingdom TV series (as an assistant)was on this morning's news telling how he repelled a 125 lb grizzly using pepper spray. (I nearly laughed out loud since I remembered the old joke about the Fish&Game warning to use little bells (to warn of approach) and pepper spray against grizzlies -and how grizzly scat revealed little bells and pepper spray. No one asked Hannah whether a 125 lb grizzly might not be an orphaned cub --because I'm quite sure that if "Mama" had been around, Mr. Hannah might have been forced to use a great deal of pepper spray!

Gerry I watch it as a kid allways wondered why they weren't hunting those criiters when I got a little older I realize how anti hunting it was.

The more we hear of this attack the more it seems the people wee targeted as prey.

Isn't this the area that the wolves have killed most of the elk off. Could it be that the wolves have killed lots of the bears food supply off so the bears have to find another kind of meat.

Or have we trained the bears to think of humans as easy prey because most humans are not armed to get rid of the aggressve bears. They act like prey moving away from bears avoiding them instead of claiming there right full place as master.

p dog shooter

You and I are from a different culture than what goes on today. The idea of carrying a firearm (there's the "bad" word!)is totally foreign to many of these backpacking kids who want to be in the back country. Young women being advised at ranger stations to be careful if they are menstruating simply dismiss such warnings. I often think that these later generations (after me - I was around when the dinosaurs were here) have been raised on a diet of TV cartoons showing "bears" (any bear) as a lovable cartoon character. (Try telling a 6 year old that a hippo is one of the most dangerous animals in Africa -not that we would,of course, but unfortunately that 6 year old grows up with that cartoon character riveted in his mind) You and I love wild life -but we are also careful around them. I can't blame a bear for coming at me -but I am allowed to make sure he doesn't put me on his dinner menu.

Gerry Iknow your a bit older then me but I was born raised in Nortern Wis on a farm. Hunting fishing and trapping were a way of life I payed for part of my collage with a trap line.

I was carring a 22 from about the age of 7 killed a grouse at 9 with a 870 20ga.

A lot of people now days have no glue what wild animals are about.

My 23yoa son is taking his 14yoa cousin out back packing to the Big Horns montains in Wyoming next week up to bomber mountain. He'll be carring my Ti 41 mag. He knows that critters are food not the other way around.

He has been shooting handguns from the time I had to help him hold them.

All the bunny huggers and tree huggers out there think that all the animals are just fun loving furie forest critters that would never think about doing any body any harm. Because they seen them all being nice and loveable on TV and in the movies. They all know and have been told many times that it is MANS fault if they ever attack. You must have done something wrong you must have been the cause.

I had a fellow tell me the other day that bears were here before I was. I told him that there isn't a bear alive today that has been here before I was.

I would happen to say there is no criiter alive today thats been around before man was. saying that we have moved into there homes is such a anti crock of crap as anything. When I was young seeing a bear track was a news worthy thing now we have them coming out are teeth.

They have move into my back yard not I haven't moved into theres.

sow was undersized
at 10+ yrs old she should of weighed in the neiborhood of 400-450
she was 225
cubs were 1 1/2 yrs old and should of
been 80-130
they were 60-70 lbs
someboby had been missing some meals.
campgrounds on the other hand are a sponge of
human debrie and i'll bet
(thou those mauled that night got a clean bill of health on food storage)
somewhere along the course of the camping season that bear found some foodstuffs there and in turn made it part of her nightly
wanderings trying to feed 3 cubs.
at this time of year they should be up above timberline eating cutworm moths out of the rock slides.
what amazes me, no one had a gun or bear spray or did the first party attacked alert the rest of the campers or sound any kind of alarm.
the father in law of the first victum was on the phone to authorities when the 2nd victum was heard screaming in the distance.
he mentioned this to 911 operaters during the call.

p dog shooter

I really laughed out loud upon reading your reponse to the guy who said black bears were here before you.

You come from a state that I always regretted not accepting invitations to hunt fuffed grouse in. (I was a fanatical ruff hunter for most of my life) You also have a beautiful state (I drove though the Dells and through Northern Wisconsin on my way to Minnesota and then turning west. (Sorry, it was summer or else a 12 would have been in the trunk) I was impressed (and convinced that you and I must have been brothers separated at birth) when I read that you used an 870. Although I did succumb occasionally to using an 1100, a pump always was my true love (starting with a Win.97 -about which there is another story!) NIce to know that there are other hunters who feel as I do! Regards.

Talking about blk bears I just got done doing a little brush hogging. Just after I fired up the tractor and started out. I went wow there were two reall nice bears chaseing each other then they stopped about 80 yards away and stood up and started trading blows. I guessing the biggest was around 400 the smaller one around 300..

I figure two males going around about terriorty.

My grouse hunting has kind of went down hill the last 10 years lost several of my best spots to being sold dogs go old ect. The best season was in 1987 90 plus grouse I hunted very hard and the grouse were at the peak great dog very good shape. Every day after work all weekends. It was a great year.

Have a new lab pup this year maybe I'll have to get my 20 SXS out again and give her a try again.