Montana pheasant hunter kills charging grizzly

Teton County law officers and state game officials on Tuesday said that a pheasant hunter from Alaska shot and killed a sow grizzly in dense brush east of U.S. Highway 89 and about 8 miles north of Choteau on Monday.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Rod Duty and Teton County Undersheriff Denny Blauer responded to the kill site north of Choteau and about one mile east of U.S. Highway 89 on state lands leased by a local rancher.

Duty and Blauer said the hunter was one of a party of four including three from Alaska and one from Great Falls who were hunting for pheasants in a dense brush field referred to as the Eldorado Grove, the largest patch of thorny buffaloberry shrubs along the Rocky Mountain Front and a known fall feeding area for grizzly bears. The shooting happened in the early afternoon.

Duty, who interviewed the hunter, said it appears that the man and his dog were following a lane or game trail through the brush and came to a dead end in shrubs and berry bushes that were well over his head. He surprised a female grizzly who was bedded down for the day with three cubs.

Duty said the hunter was probably 20 feet from the bear when he saw her. He said the hunter told him she was on her feet and took two big lunges toward him. He fired three times at her with a 20-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, Duty said. The third shot, including the wad, hit the bear in the forehead and brought her down, fatally wounded.

Duty said the man rejoined his hunting party and then they walked about a mile back to their vehicle, drove to the landowner’s ranch house and called FWP and the Teton County Sheriff’s Office. Duty and Blauer responded together, and Duty conducted the investigation.

Duty said on Tuesday that the case appears to be a self-defense shooting. He said he has conferred with a federal investigator since shooting a grizzly bear can be a violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. He said the investigation will be considered open until the results of a necropsy on the bear are done at the state lab in Bozeman. Unless new evidence comes to light, however, he said he considers it a case of justified shooting in defense of the life of the hunter.

MFP grizzly management specialist Mike Madel of Choteau on Monday began trying to trap the sow’s three cubs but as of Tuesday mid morning he had been unsuccessful. He said the female was a medium-sized bear, somewhere between 9.5 to 10.5 years old in prime condition with no history of nuisance complaints. She had been radio-collared last spring as part of a population study and was known to range up and down Deep Creek and Willow Creek primarily. He said biologists did not know she was in the Eldorado Grove.

Madel said that if he can trap the cubs, they will be sent to the state wildlife rehabilitation facility and then the state will try to place them with a zoo. If they are not captured, they will likely move west and try to find a den before the end of October, when most sows with cubs and pregnant sows will enter their winter dens high up in the mountains. Their chances of surviving the winter and next spring without their mother, however, are slim, he said.

Madel said the shooting will bring the bear mortality count on the Rocky Mountain Front to nine since the cubs will also be counted as mortalities. The other mortalities include another sow with one cub and three male grizzlies. This may be the highest single-year mortality for bears on the Front on record, he said.

Madel emphasized that all bow hunters and bird hunters need to be bear aware when they are out in the field along the Rocky Mountain Front this fall. Hunters should carry bear spray and should avoid dense, brushy patches, where bears could be bedded down. They should also be on the look out for bear scat and day beds, and should avoid dense berry patches that are likely to attrack bears at this time of year

Gary Scheel
NAHC LM,RMEF LM,NRA Member, Lonestar Bowhunter, TexasHogHunter Pro Staff Member

I hate that she had to be killed but you gotta do what you gotta do! Maybe they can get her cubs trapped and do something with them.

Love playing that string music and sending a Muzzy flying!