A man who failed to return from a one-day hunting trip Monday is the subject of a search and rescue effort near Sundre.

He's missing in the same area where a hunter from Calgary was fatally mauled by a bear last fall.

Ten RCMP officers, 20 search and rescue personnel, search dogs and a plane crew are looking in the Bergen area, 15 kilometres south of Sundre.

The search started Tuesday afternoon after the hunter's wife told RCMP he didn't come home from his hunting trip.

His vehicle has been found by searchers along Highway 22, but they are still looking for the outdoorsman.

The search began in the area where his vehicle was discovered, with paths and other openings in the region being a priority.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb said the missing man is a regular hunter.

His name has not been released.

Last November, Don Allen Peters, 51, was hunting 60 kilometres west of Sundre. The Calgary resident died after being attacked by a grizzly.

The bear that killed Peters was found and destroyed in April 2008.

Webb said bears are one of the dangers police and other searchers are keeping in mind.

"Bears have been seen in that area," said Webb.

Though Tuesday was a warm day, the hunter is said to have been prepared for cooler weather.

"He is prepared for bad weather, but I don't think he intended to sleep (outside) overnight, though. He was prepared so that if the weather turned, he wasn't going to be out there in shorts," said Webb.

smassinon@theherald.canwest.com


They found him wednsday, with a grizzly sow feeding on him. Certainly sounds like the bear may have killed him on his way into his hunting spot. They will know more today.

Stories like this just make me sick to my stomach. What a tragedy!!!!!!!!

I am saddened by this horrible event and my sympathy goes to his family.

Alberta, where I worked as a "tower-person" has only a tiny fraction of the number of Grizzlies we have in BC. It is incidents like this that motivate me and many other experienced hunters/bushworkers I know to always carry a serious cartridge in our rifles.

For this, I prefer the .338WM-250NP, the 9.3 x 62, 64 and 74R with 286NPs and the .375 H&H with 300 NPs. Something like a .358Norma with 250, 270 or 280 premium bullets and the new .375 Ruger also fit in here very well.

I have dealt with quite a number of Grizzlies and a smallbore feels pretty tiny up close to one!

Moral of the story: Hunt with a bow if you like, but have a big-bore handgun on your hip in these parts...

A medical examiner has confirmed that a central Alberta man who disappeared while out hunting was killed by a bear.

Robert Wagner, 48, of Didsbury was reported missing after failing to return from his trip Monday. His body was found less than a kilometre away from his truck southwest of Sundre on Wednesday.

Hunter killed
Canwest News Service
Published: Saturday, October 04, 2008
A missing hunter was mauled to death by a bear, Alberta Mounties confirmed Friday.

Robert Wagner, 48, of Didsbury, Alta. was killed while hunting in the rugged Bergen area, about 100 kilometres northwest of Calgary. Searchers found Wagner's body on Wednesday, less than a kilometre from his all-terrain vehicle.

An autopsy confirmed Wagner died as the result of being attacked by a bear. Fish and Wildlife officials are trying to locate the bear who attacked Wagner.

His wife reported him missing after he failed to return home on Monday. RCMP officers, search-and-rescue volunteers and an airplane began searching for Wagner on Tuesday.



© The Windsor Star 2008

A very sad story but .
There's a lot more to this story than what the press is reporting.The family and his hunting buddy's had to wait 2 days at the Search + Rescue tent about 1 mile away from the kill site for the sow grizz with her 3 full grown cubs finished feeding on body , the chicken sh*t CO's would not go in to recover the body because of the Political Bull sh*t .So on the 3 day the CO's got a chopper in and pushed the sow+cubs across HWY 22 into a more dense farming + ranching area with out warning the public about a man killing grizzy with cubs roaming around , about the same BS as the Wolf's in Yellowstone Park. Think the locals will be doing the old S.S.S. rule !!!!!

This one hits very close to home. The attack site is about 5 miles away, from where I live, just across a heavily travelled highway. The guy had permission to hunt several quarters around the Harmattan gas plant area. This is no back woods area, but densely settled agricultural land. You expect Grizzlies further west, but I often tramp the local woods without any concern. Obviously that will change. One of the Sundre schools had a field trip scheduled to visit the corn maze, just around the corner from me, but cancelled it on account of a sighting of a Grizzly sow and three cubs. Don't know if this was before or after the attack. Now it appears that there have been a number of bear sightings in the immediate vicinity, but nobody thought to give any warning. I tried to get some details from one of the search and rescue people, without any luck Maybe some embarrasment here? In the bigger picture, one has to wonder if these bears are being counted in our fabled bear count. In central Alberta, at least, I would have to think this attack sets a record for being this far east and away from the foothills
Grizz

Well I'm just waiting for bucko to chime in, that is if his dad is still letting him use the computor

the chef

Where are you getting that info from SJR. From what I heard they only found the body after the helicopter saw a bunch of ravens in the trees, when they flew closer they could see the bear feeding on something, then they went in and found him deceased.
The F&W are not in charge of the search, the RCMP are. I really doubt anyone would knowingly let the bear finish feeding on a person because of politics.
The F&W service takes a lot of BS heat fom the public when they kill bear, as in this past spring when they killed the grizzly in the yaha tinda. If they can confirm the bear in this case is the offender, they will kill it as well.

Also knowing the F&W officers that were on scene at this search, I can say they are not scared of any bears, nor of going into a kill site to deal with such bears. In fact the same F&W officers had a 430 pound male grizzly in a trap 3 weeks ago, they did not appear to scared of it.

Blaming the officials on scene for causing the family grief for 2 days seems unfounded at this time. Search's can be a long tough grind, it can take days to roperly search an area, compounded by the fact the missing hunter is wearing camo and does not stand out against the scenery. Also add to the fact that all the search teams needed to have lethal overwatch because of all the bears in the area, maks it a slow process.

I used to work for the Alberta Environment ministry and this is just typical garbage that those who do the low paid and vital jobs of resource management are used to hearing. There is NO WAY that a AFS, Wildlife or Parks staffer OR their BC counterparts would EVER just leave a human, alive or dead, to be fed upon by an animal!

I often heard crap like this in my years in fire suppression with the BCFS and AFS from little, cologne wearing urban mouthpieces who could not so much as carry a 60 lb. "pizztank" full of H20 for 25 yds....yet, knew ALL about the bush......

Several good friends of mine have died fighting fire to protect the rural retreats of such wilderness experts and I find comments like this really offensive.

I talked to a couple of people today. The actual scene of the attack is very close to the Westward Ho Campground, closer to here than I originally figured. My wife rides there all the time. The local sporting goods store owner says it's been good for business. Sold a whole load of bear spray and a half dozen Winchester Defenders. One person told him point blank, if he saw the bear, it would be shoot, shovel and shut up. There are actually 4 bears, a sow and three almost grown cubs involved and one source claims they are planning to relocate them. There is a meeting planned for this Friday, which will essentially be a lynch mob. On top of that, our Thanksgiving trail ride is being cancelled, because of another agressive Grizzly, just west of Sundre. Hard to believe that there are only about 200 left in Alberta. Must be having a convention here.
Grizz

Were did i get my info from ?????
One of Roberts best hunting Buddys who spend 2 days at the Search + Resuce tent waiting for the Alberta MOE to make a move on that Sow Grizz + 3 cubs

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
I used to work for the Alberta Environment ministry and this is just typical garbage that those who do the low paid and vital jobs of resource management are used to hearing. There is NO WAY that a AFS, Wildlife or Parks staffer OR their BC counterparts would EVER just leave a human, alive or dead, to be fed upon by an animal!

I often heard crap like this in my years in fire suppression with the BCFS and AFS from little, cologne wearing urban mouthpieces who could not so much as carry a 60 lb. "pizztank" full of H20 for 25 yds....yet, knew ALL about the bush......

Several good friends of mine have died fighting fire to protect the rural retreats of such wilderness experts and I find comments like this really offensive.

I don't want to rush to judgement her, but there is a lot of politics around this business. Page one of thursday's Calgary Heral carried a story bitching about allegedly low Grizzly numbers,, while the story of the attack, was relegated, as a small piece, to the bottom of the second section. There are pensions to worry about.
Grizz

SUNDRE, Alta. — Alberta wildlife officers have killed a female grizzly bear that fatally mauled a hunter near Sundre last week southwest of Red Deer.

A government official says officers are now trying to trap the dead bear’s three cubs, which are believed to be more than one-year old.

The official said if the cubs cannot be trapped and relocated, they may be killed as well.

Robert Wagner, 48, of Didsbury was reported missing after failing to return from a hunting trip Sept 29.

People concerned about grizzly bears in the area plan to meet with provincial wildlife officials tonight near Cremona.

Alberta bear experts estimate there may be less than 500 grizzlies left in the province

We had the meeting, for what it was worth , last night. It was billed as an informational meeting and only writtten selected questions, were allowed. The much vaunted alberta grizzly census is only being conducted on Provincial land, they told us. This sow was not listed in the DNA databank, by which the government came up with 230 Grizzlies, betweeen H1 and 11. So now we know there were at least 234. The sow was killed on the Doc Mills Rd., west of water Valley.

quote:

Originally posted by Dewey:
I used to work for the Alberta Environment ministry and this is just typical garbage that those who do the low paid and vital jobs of resource management are used to hearing. There is NO WAY that a AFS, Wildlife or Parks staffer OR their BC counterparts would EVER just leave a human, alive or dead, to be fed upon by an animal!

Apparently they did. Officials could not ascertain what type of kill the bear was on and did not want to chance killing the bear only to find out it was'nt a human kill it was feeding on.