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All Grizzly Bears Articles
BILLINGS, Mont. -- A hunter attacked by a wounded grizzly in a Montana forest was not killed by the bear, as originally thought, but by a gunshot fired by a hunting buddy trying to save him, authorities say.
An autopsy determined that Steve Stevenson, 39, of Winnemucca, Nev., died of a single gunshot to the chest, Lincoln County Sheriff Roby Bowe said Friday.
The shot was fired by Ty Bell, 20, also of Winnemucca, as he attempted to stop the bear's attack. No charges are expected, Bowe said.
BOISE, Idaho - An Idaho elk hunter who apparently stumbled across a bear's resting spot Saturday was hospitalized after the animal bit him and broke his right arm, officials said.
Richard Paini, 40, suffered puncture wounds and an injured left hand along with the broken forearm in the attack at about 9 a.m. He was taken to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.
Next summer, grizzly bears will follow their noses to census sites.
Enticed by the smell of fermented cow blood and fish guts, they'll crawl through corrals of barbed wire to sniff logs doused with the mixture. Unbeknownst to them, the big bruins will be leaving DNA samples behind.
Researchers will collect hair snared on the barbed wire. Through DNA testing, scientists will be able to identify individual grizzlies and determine their gender and blood lines. The three-year study will yield more precise estimates of the number of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem of North Idaho and Western Montana.
The dangers of hunting where others have hunted were illustrated this week when an Interior Alaska grizzly bear mauled 65-year-old Donald "Skip" Sanford of Anchorage. Sanford hunting companion Monty Dyson said Thursday that the attack happened after Sanford went back to the site of an earlier moose kill along the Maclaren River, about 250 miles northeast of Alaska's largest city.
Sanford is still recovering from the attack in an Anchorage hospital, and is in no mood to talk.
A California hiker killed by a grizzly in Yellowstone National Park on July 6 - the first fatal bear mauling in Yellowstone in a quarter century, and one of two attacks in the park this year - may have unwittingly provoked the bear by screaming and running away, according to a final report released Tuesday.
The park report suggested that the 58-year-old victim, Brian Matayoshi, of Torrance, California, might have survived his encounter if he and his wife, Marylyn, had heeded posted advisories.
Alberta environmental groups called on the provincial government Monday to reduce the number of roads and trails in bear habitats.
Pointing to two recent studies, the groups said the concentration of roads in some areas exceeds the province's own limits. And they say more roads means more access for the public, which is putting more pressure on the bears.
KALISPELL, Mont. - A young female grizzly bear fitted with a satellite collar for more than a year embarked on several lengthy swims across portions of Flathead Lake, wildlife officials in Montana said.
Rick Mace with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said the 4-year-old grizzly made the swims after being captured on the west side of the lake near Flathead Lake Lutheran Camp late last summer.
Grizzlies are high profile this year.
A lingering winter and late berry crop kept bears in proximity to humans longer than normal, perhaps contributing to a stream of headlines about grizzlies killing people and people killing grizzlies.
Meanwhile, a young lady on a big horse charged out of the pack of grizzly stories near Glacier National Park. In a cloud of dust, the 25-year-old wrangler likely saved a boy's life while demonstrating that skill, quick-thinking and guts sometimes are the best weapons against a head-on charging grizzly.
A 39-year-old hunter killed by a wounded grizzly bear yelled out to draw the 400-pound male bear toward him in an effort to keep it from attacking his young hunting partner, the man's family said.
"They both shot it and it kept coming," Steve Stevenson's mom, Janet Price, said on Saturday. "Steve yelled at it to try and distract it, and it swung around and took him down. It's what my son would have done automatically, for anybody."
Four years ago the Alaska Legislature offered Gov. Sarah Palin and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game a special deal: $400,000 to "educate" voters on predator control. The money -- spent mostly on a video, glossy brochures and public presentations -- was meant to persuade and reassure Alaskans that predator control is essential and effective.
Firmly convinced he's doing the right thing, the new director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation at Fish and Game, Corey Rossi, is taking predator control to new levels. For the first time since statehood, Alaska has targeted grizzly bears for large-scale population reductions, not by hunters but by agents of the state.
British Columbia's coastal grizzly bears often have a hard time securing their life requisites, as humans interfere with much of their day-to -day existence. Grizzlies face a myriad of threats, from the degradation of their habitat by industrial forestry, to their direct killing via trophy hunting. They also face fierce competition for their most important food source, wild salmon, from commercial and sport fisheries.
That competition may have gotten more extreme this summer, as BC's north coast commercial salmon fishermen have discarded over 20% (by weight) of their catch, including 1.4 million pounds (636 metric tons) of chum salmon. Many of these fish are from stocks that federal fisheries scientists have described as 'conservation concern'. One-half of these chum discards came from areas in and around the Great Bear Rainforest.
Most of the discarded fish are not expected to survive because salmon hauled up in nets and onto decks need careful handling to be released back to the water unharmed.
Removing grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act protection in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem would be premature and not based on known science, the head of a regional conservation group said last week.
Greater Yellowstone Coalition Executive Director Mike Clark made the comments Thursday while on a trip to Jackson.
This summer in Yellowstone National Park, on two separate occasions, two men sadly lost their lives from deadly encounters with grizzly bears. Both of these men did not carry bear pepper spray, and if they would have, they would likely still be alive. As autumn approaches and the leaves begin to change, its time to look at some other changes that will prevent the brutal loss of life that Yellowstone has experienced this year.
Thank God for the bear spray.
Without it, Kevin and Julie Boyer probably wouldn't be alive. Instead, they'd have likely shared the fates of two other hikers who were attacked and killed by grizzly bears this summer inside Yellowstone National Park.
But they did have bear spray. They survived. And they're here to share their story.
Every spring and fall, William Housty walks the banks of the Koeye River, spreading a concoction with a smell almost guaranteed to make humans retch.
But the mixture of salmon oil, boileddown beaver juice, skunk essence and berries is irresistible to grizzly bears and, as the animals are drawn to the pungent mixture, snags of their hair, caught on strategically-placed barbed wire, tell their stories.
A Yellowstone National Park hiker whose body was found mauled last week was killed by a grizzly bear, authorities reported Monday, the second fatal bear attack in the park this summer.
The hiker was identified as 59-year-old John Wallace, a Michigan resident who was traveling alone and had pitched his tent in a campground along the Mary Mountain trail last Wednesday. Wallace's body was discovered on Friday by two hikers in an area of the park that was closed to hikers, according to park services.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK -- After last month's fatal grizzly attack in Yellowstone National Park, visitor safety has been a top priority. But after a video was sent to NBC Montana by videographer Jim Bolser showing people taking photos just feet away from a bear, it's clear some visitors aren't being very cautious.
"I started telling the little kids and the people that they should not be standing that close, told them to get back in their cars and people just coming up with cameras and getting closer," Bolser said.
BANFF, Alta. - It's been a deadly year so far, for wildlife in the national and provincial parks of the Rocky Mountains.
In all, 10 bears have been killed by humans in Banff, Kootenay and Yoho national parks, and three of those were grizzly bears hit by cars or trains.
And while not dead, another grizzly is lost from the local population after it was relocated to a more remote region of Alberta for killing a sheep dangerously close to where children were sleeping at Camp Chief Hector in Bow Valley Provincial Park.
WHITEFISH - A Missoula-based nonprofit organization this week adopted a 71-acre tract of wildlife habitat in the Yaak Mountains near Troy that it hopes will improve grizzly bear migration corridors.
The property was purchased by the Vital Ground Foundation from a private landowner and lies within the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone. The acquisition helps expand grizzly bear "linkage zones," or corridors that provide safe travel for bears and other wildlife that rove between seasonal habitats.
Some of the world's foremost bear experts are to gather in Banff next month to find new ways to prevent grizzlies from getting killed along railway tracks inside the national park.
A dozen of the bears have been killed and a half dozen cubs orphaned in the last decade and experts estimate there are now only between 45 and 60 grizzlies left in the park. Last year, Alberta reclassified the species as threatened because of rapidly dwindling numbers.
Three of the mighty bruins have died this year. Two were killed on the Trans-Canada Highway. A third was hit by a train on the CP Rail line and left behind two orphan cubs.
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