WHITEFISH – Wildlife officials have killed the black bear that they believe mauled a man who was camping deep in the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area on Friday.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Regional Supervisor Jim Satterfield said the unidentified man was injured at about 7:30 a.m. Friday in the Black Bear Creek area. The man was flown to Kalispell Regional Medical Center by ALERT helicopter and is expected to recover.
Satterfield said a team of wildlife agents flew into the remote area by helicopter to track down the animal, which they spotted 30 yards from the injured man’s campsite. The bear had pepper spray on its fur and blood in its claws, he said.
“We are very confident that we killed the offending bear,” he said. “We still have to analyze its stomach contents and wait on a DNA analysis to be 100 percent sure, but with the evidence we have we are very confident.”
Although Satterfield did not immediately have a detailed narrative of the circumstances of the attack, he said the bear apparently entered the man’s campsite and attacked.
“We don’t typically dispatch a bear if it is behaving naturally, if it is defending its cubs or becomes spooked,” he said. “That wasn’t the case here.”
Satterfield said the U.S. Forest Service played a critical role in securing the site of the attack until the wildlife agents could arrive.
“That kept people away so the bear wasn’t spooked away, otherwise who knows how many bears we might have had to kill,” he said. “It was good to be able to dispatch the bear prior to the start of hunting season this weekend. Now we don’t have to worry about a rogue bear running around out there.”
