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I have a friend and colleague who is moving to Fairbanks next week and he is looking for a pistol to carry in grizzly country. He is an avid outdoorsman and will be hunting up there on a regular basis, but the only pistol he currently owns is a Browning 9mm. He'd thought about getting a 1911A1, but I've pretty much convinced him that a .45ACP is okay against black bears, but is too slow hitting for effective use against grizzlies.

A moose hunter attacked by a grizzly bear north of the Denali Highway survived the severe mauling Monday after hiking to his camp, traveling by boat downriver to a wilderness lodge then getting an airlift via Alaska Air National Guard helicopter to an Anchorage hospital. Donald "Skip" Sanford, 65, was hunting about five miles upriver from the Maclaren River Lodge when the bear attacked, according to Alaska State Troopers. Sanford had been hunting with his son John, 12, his friend Monty Dyson, 47, and Dyson's son Chad, 22, Dyson said. Dyson relayed Sanford's story Tuesday by radio phone from the...

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.

Porthill man pays $1,000 fine for violating Endangered Species ActCOEUR d'ALENE - The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boise announced Wednesday it is dismissing the pending misdemeanor criminal charge against Jeremy M. Hill for the killing of a grizzly bear on his Porthill property on May 8. Hill, 33, agreed that under provisions of the Endangered Species Act and related regulations, he committed a violation. Hill shot a 2-year-old male grizzly bear that was with its mother and a sibling on Hill's 20-acre property. Regulations prohibit removing nuisance bears, except when authorized by government authorities. Hill, who pleaded not guilty in...

Have you heard the one about the man who shot a bear in his yard? It seems that earlier this year, Mr. Jeremy Hill of Idaho shot a young male grizzly when the bear appeared with two others in the yard where his children were playing. Mr. Hill promptly grabbed a rifle and protected his children by shooting the bear. Since the grizzly is a protected species, Mr. Hill promptly called the state Department of Fish and Game, reporting what had happened. According to the Spokesman Review: Boundary County Prosecutor Jack Douglas has sent a letter to media outlets with...

A grizzly bear killed a Michigan man whose body was found by hikers last week in Yellowstone National Park, officials said Monday. The victim was identified Monday as John Wallace of Chassell, Mich.

A grizzly bear sow with a cub attacked a group of teenagers on a month-long survival-skills course Saturday night in the Talkeetna Mountains, causing severe injuries to two of the hikers, according to Alaska State Troopers. (snip) The group was on the 24th day of a 30-day backpacking trip, school spokesman Bruce Palmer said by phone from Wyoming. It was the group's first day unaccompanied by adult instructors, Palmer said. "For the last bit of the course, we would have them travel as a student group without the instructors, utilizing the skills that they've learned over time," Palmer said. (snip)...

For 32 months, the MSM has scrutinized every aspect of Sarah Palin's life. Now we can add to that anal exam the unprecedented release of all her personal and business email correspondence from her tenure as Governor of Alaska. There is nothing Americans do not know about Mrs. Palin, yet she still makes the left cringe when she speaks. It really makes one wonder what, if anything, could destroy this Momma Grizzly. After all, there have been politicians who have crumbled under much less, yet this Grizzly still roars in defiance at the mainstream political establishment that hopes and...

RONAN - No charges will be filed against a Ronan-area landowner who shot and killed a female grizzly bear that had killed chickens on May 14. It was one of two grizzlies killed in Montana that weekend. Pablo Espinoza, chief of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Fish and Game Department, said Monday that authorities determined the death of the grizzly was a justifiable self-defense shooting. The bear had been on the man's property earlier in the day and was shot when it returned. Tribal officials are encouraging landowners who have, or could have, similar problems with bears to attend...

"I thought it was a horse and carriage," said Wypyszinski. "That was the kind of noise that I heard." By the time he turned around, the two fuzzy brown images were racing quickly toward him. Wypyszinski pulled out his camera quickly, thinking he was going to catch two moose racing down the highway. He quickly learned he was mistaken. "I thought I was having a hallucination or something," said Wypyszinski. "I couldn't believe what that buffalo looked like."

PASAYTEN WILDERNESS, Wash. — Past the asters and aspen and subalpine fir, past the quick, cold creeks and the huckleberry hillsides, the bear hunter stopped and cocked his tweezers. “Here,” said Bill Gaines, a wildlife biologist for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, “is the mother lode.” Caught on a prong of barbed wire that he had strung weeks earlier in these remote mountains was a tantalizing clue: strands of light brown bear hair. “Oh, look at that, look at that root right there,” he said. “That’s really good.” It will be months before DNA tests tell the full story: did those...

Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits. The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City, Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest...

COOKE CITY, Mont. (AP) -- A mother grizzly and two of her three cubs have been captured after killing a Michigan man and injuring two other people during an overnight rampage through a campground near Yellowstone National Park. The sow, estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe covered by the dead victim's tent Wednesday evening.

CODY — Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal mauling Thursday of a Shoshone National Forest cabin owner by a grizzly bear. The incident took place at a site where a bear had been captured and released earlier Thursday. Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Cody, was reported missing by his wife to a member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team that had been conducting research in the Kitty Creek drainage, about 10 miles east of Yellowstone National Park. Researchers had earlier trapped and released an adult male grizzly in the area... A study team member returned to the...

Jackson, Wyo. » The successful prosecution of a Jackson Hole hunter who claimed self defense after killing a grizzly could set a precedent in Greater Yellowstone, where the grizzly population is expanding and loaded guns are now allowed in national parks, experts say. A jury recently found 41-year-old Stephen Westmoreland guilty of a misdemeanor charge of illegally taking a grizzly bear stemming from an incident in September when he shot a bear. He argued self defense in a trial that hinged on the behavior of the bear, among other things. Mark Bruscino, bear management program supervisor for the Wyoming Game...

Bush pilots know that wildlife can be a hazard to your health. Aircraft have collided with giraffes and other large animals on various remote African airstrips, and there are numerous stories of downed pilots being hassled by predators after making forced landings out in the boonies. Lion and hyena are also know to be partial to certain aircraft components, tyres being a documented favourite of the big cats. My father was once left with the (hefty) bill after a gang of hyenas chewed his wingtip navigation lights and strobes (both wings) and then did a runner after dinner. These pictures...

After what could be the first grizzly bear attack on a human in the Upper Green, a 46-year-old sheepherder was life-flighted to Idaho Falls early Monday morning after being seriously mauled. The grizzly began its rampage in the early hours in a sheep herd grazing near Forest Road 617, at the eastern edge of the Gros Ventre Wilderness near Tosi Creek. The herd is tended by Marcello Tejeda, of Rock Springs, and Jorge Mesa, both of whom were awakened by what they thought was a black bear in the sheep, according to their employer, rancher Mary Thoman of Fontenelle. Monday,...

Last Sunday a fourth brown bear for the year was killed in a defense of life and property (DLP) shooting, and there is no mistaking that it was the former, not the latter, that was on the line for the man who shot it.

Pet dog? Cat? Maybe a goldfish? Not for naturalist Casey Anderson, who adopted a grizzly bear cub seven years ago after the furry one-month-old was found orphaned in an overpopulated wildlife park. Anderson named his new pet Brutus, and the two have been inseparable ever since — together, they've set out on a yearlong mission to chronicle the lives of Yellowstone's vulnerable grizzly bears. The pair star in the National Geographic special “Expedition Grizzly featuring Casey Anderson,” airing Sunday, May 3 at p.m. ET/PT.

Predation Did Not Come from Evolution by Daniel Criswell, Ph.D.* Although the origin of predation is poorly understood, it is incorrect to attribute to young-earth creation the assertion that predatory animals quickly and recently evolved the physical features necessary for predation. It is a common fallacy that carnivores evolved from a change in form and function. No physical evolution was required to change herbivores to predators--it was merely a change in behavior. The view that an alteration of genomes and phenotypes, such as sharp teeth and claws, would have been required to supply the physical features for predation from herbivorous...

They may look slow and clumsy, but underwater cameras have revealed that grizzly bears can perform some fancy footwork when a meal is on the cards.A BBC team followed the bears as the annual salmon migration got underway. They filmed them using their huge feet to deftly kick dead fish from deep pools into shallower water. This behaviour, caught on camera for the first time, meant that the grizzlies could grab the fish without the bother of getting their ears wet.Wildlife cameraman Jeff Turner said: "Most bears will do anything to avoid getting their ears wet - they hate it.....

A Cody bowhunter in search of an elk found a grizzly bear instead in a Sept. 12 mauling incident on the South Fork. And Ron J. Leming, 37, attributes his father's lifetime of bowhunting for saving his life. “There are not many people who could stand their ground like that, especially with a bow and arrow,” Leming said Wednesday. “I would have been mauled way worse, if not killed, if Dad hadn't had the nerve to stand his ground and shoot that bear with his bow. There's not many people who could have done that.” Leming said his father's shot...

Mauling was in Gates of the Arctic National Park. A grizzly bear dragged a woman out of her tent Thursday and mauled her ... according to the National Park Service. The woman was saved by companions camped with her ... An Alyeska Pipeline Services Co. helicopter, normally used to monitor the oil pipeline, was expected to pick her up there and ferry her to a hospital in Fairbanks... They were camped and asleep when the bear arrived in camp. It apparently first entered a "food tent," Quinley said. "It destroyed a water jug," he said, and tried to get into...

Always there have been the bears in and around Anchorage. Never before has there been a bear mauling in town. Not that the horrific attack on 15-year-old mountain biker Petra Davis last weekend came as a shock to those familiar with local bears. A small group of wildlife biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have been warning for years that something like this could happen ... Some who have been hiking, running and mountain biking in the park and the adjacent Chugach State Park for decades say they see more bears and more bear sign than ever...

A teenage girl riding in an all-night bicycle race suffered severe injuries early this morning when a bear attacked her on a trail ... Police officers with shotguns escorted medics into dark woods to retrieve the girl... "She was cut up and bit pretty good," After the mauling, the girl used her cell phone to call 911 but was unable to communicate... Another rider who came along found her sitting on the ground and said she could utter only one word: "Bear." He then used her phone to make another call for help. Sinnott said he didn't arrive in time...

After years of stomping around the grizzly haunts of the wildest coast of North America without a serious bear encounter, forester Rick Rogers never imagined the first and only close call of his life would come in an Anchorage park visited by thousands of people. SNIP . . . He thought his maximum heart rate was 180. He later looked at the monitor and realized he'd hit 193.

A 53-year-old man in Saanich, B.C., managed to drive to safety after a grizzly bear mauled his head and tossed him to the ground in the woods near Bella Coola, about 700 kilometres north of Vancouver. The attack took place on May 3 when Brent Case was on a surveying job along the rugged Central Coast area. "He came up from behind me and started gnawing at the back of my head. It just started ripping the scalp off the head," Case told CBC News on Friday. "The pain was so excruciating that I don't know why I didn't yell...

A man from B.C.'s Interior not only survived being mauled by a grizzly — he killed the bear as well. John Shorter, 38, was hiking near Dease Lake in Northern B.C. Tuesday when he said he smelled a bear in the area. "I heard a woofing sound, turned, seen a grizz coming at me. I managed to get my rifle up and get one round into the chest.… At that point he got on top of me, obviously, and took me down," Shorter said. "He proceeded to try to maul me in the back of the scalp and on the...

A Montana man was mauled and severely injured in a run-in with a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park's Hayden Valley Wednesday, park officials confirmed Wednesday evening. The man, in his late 50s, was apparently taking photographs of a female grizzly and her cub along Trout Creek when he was attacked, park spokesman Al Nash said. Despite “severe facial injuries,” he was able to walk two or three miles to the Grand Loop Road, where visitors found him and alerted rangers. The man, whose name and hometown were not released pending notification of relatives, was taken by ambulance to West...

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. - The grizzly bear that wrestled Will Ferrell's character in the recent film "Semi-Pro" seemed to obediently follow cues — which made its killing of its trainer with a bite to the neck all the more stunning. Three experienced handlers were working with the grizzly Tuesday at the Predators in Action wild animal training center when the bear attacked Stephan Miller, 39, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers. Stephan Miller is the cousin of training center owner Randy Miller, she said. Pepper spray was used to subdue and contain the bear, and there were...

A grizzly bear that appeared in a recent Will Ferrell movie killed a 39-year-old trainer with a bite to his neck Tuesday ... Three experienced handlers ...Rocky is 7 1/2 feet tall, weighs 700 pounds ... Randy Miller also said, "If one of these animals gets a hold of your throat, you're finished,"... "You can train them and use as many safety precautions as you can, but you're still taking a chance if you're putting yourself in contact with them," Richards said. "It's still a wild animal. Even though it may appear that the bear attacked for no reason, there...

Juneau man recounts Friday morning bear attack on Admiralty Island . A "crack" in the brush. A split second to turn and see the bear. Another second to click the gun's safety off. That's all the time Dr. John Raster had before the brown bear attacked him. "I screamed and fired a shot into the air," he said. "It was already on me and the gun was still pretty much slung around my shoulder. He bit me and started scratching me and pushed me down into the water." The Juneau doctor had been walking alone Friday morning along a stretch...

Long ago, grizzly bears thrived in Montana as did tales - some tall, some true - told by frontiersmen of a man-eater even more fearsome than the other two bogeymen of the forest, wolves and mountain lions. Today, the reputation of Ursus arctos horribilis - along with other major predators ... Also changed is how people can handle encounters with grizzlies, using a chemical spray rather than guns to improve the odds that both humans and bears will escape the encounters unharmed. But Workman believes that if a bullet was good enough for his great-grandfather more than a century ago,...

Advice from FWP not always applicable. If you're on a sight-seeing trip through the mountains while carrying your hunting rifle, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks' advice regarding grizzly bears is great. But if you ever hope to actually fill a tag with an elk or deer, the advice has some problems. Making noise For example, one piece of advice to avoid bears is to make plenty of noise as you hike through bear country. Another is to hunt in pairs or groups. Yet another is to avoid cover that might hide a bear. Unfortunately, most hunters would agree that the...

For the first time in decades, people venturing into the sprawling Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem are going to be told to keep their eyes peeled for grizzly bears. That change follows the killing of a large grizzly bear in a roadless area of north-central Idaho, where the last confirmed sighting of the species came in 1946. The grizzly was shot Sept. 3 by a Tennessee hunter near Kelly Creek, about three miles from the Montana border. The bear was a young 400- to 500-pound male that was between 6 and 9 years old, said Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's...

A man is recovering in hospital after being attacked by a female grizzly. The victim, a man in his 30s, was preparing for bow-hunting season ... He managed to kill the bear with a knife, but suffered serious arm and elbow injuries.

A bicycle rider says his golden retriever distracted a charging grizzly bear long enough to let him escape. It was the second time the dog has played hero.Kiska, a 6-year-old male dog, distracted the bear by barking, allowing his owner, Todd Fitzgerald, 46, to run to a nearby home. "If my dog had not tied up that bear for the few seconds, I don't know what would have happened," said Fitzgerald. "I think the dog saved my life."

HOMER, Alaska (May 9) -- Odd sounds outside their home woke Gary and Terri Lyon early Sunday morning, so Gary got up to check it out. He looked outside and saw a 500-pound grizzly bear killing an adult moose in their driveway. "I saw this wildlife spectacle of a full-grown brown bear on a moose and the moose fighting for its life," Gary said. The couple put their dog inside, grabbed their cameras and started filming the attack as the grizzly battled the moose down the driveway, finally killing it. They posted the video on YouTube. "She tore apart the...

An eastern Idaho man was mauled by a grizzly bear just outside his rural home, suffering deep bite and claw wounds across his back, investigators said. Authorities did not immediately release the name of the 33-year-old victim of the Tuesday night bear attack, saying he requested anonymity. They said he was in stable condition and good spirits in an Idaho Falls hospital. "He just stepped outside of his house to look for his dog ... then the bear knocked him down," said Idaho Fish and Game Regional Supervisor Steve Schmidt... "The bear caused significant injuries to his head, back, shoulder...

Juanita Neidrauer got into the alpaca and llama business to feed her gentle art of weaving and spinning. Little did she know that six of her native South American animals would meet a violent end, victims of a male grizzly bear's one-night killing rampage on B.C.'s central coast. "What alpacas and llamas do, if there is a danger, they run towards it," explained Neidrauer, a 68-year-old resident of Hagensborg in the Bella Coola Valley. "They sort of attack it." That tactic might work in the high reaches of the Andes. But on the grizzly-laden B.C. coast? Not so much. "They...

Task Force Grizzly soldiers prepare for a night operation in Pashmul, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, in mid September. Operation Medusa, which lasted approximately 20 days, was a successfully operations that effectively pushed enemy insurgents from this region of the country. Army photo by Sgt. Mayra Kennedy Task Force Grizzly Soldiers Eliminate Insurgents Operation Medusa which lasted approximately 20 days, was a successful operation that effectively pushed enemy insurgents from this region of Afghanistan. By U.S. Army Sgt. Mayra Kennedy 345th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment PANJWAYI, Afghanistan, Oct. 10, 2006 -- A small number of soldiers from the 207th Infantry Brigade...

One bruin dies after chomping 5,000-volt line; another flattens tents Two brown bears prowling separate parts of Anchorage have made deep trouble for themselves -- with one already dead after biting into a power line. A 600-pound brown bear made its way to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail on the edge of Kincaid Park and was killed when it opened a utility box and bit into a live electrical wire Thursday. snip ...more than 600 pounds: ... the 7-foot animal .... bit into 5,000 volts .... Meanwhile .... a couple and their child, about 8 or 9 years old, were...

Planning to overnight at the Kenai's most popular campground? Leave the tent at home. Tent camping is now banned in the Russian River campground. Campers there must sleep in a hard-shelled vehicle. This comes after a bear grabbed a man sleeping in his tent early Saturday morning and bit him. Other campers scared off the bear after the man started yelling. He suffered minor injuries.

Fourteen-foot grizzly killed in Alaska By D.A. Ray, outdoor correspondent The Sun Deer hunting is one of the major seasons in Oklahoma. What would you do if you were doing just that and a huge bear charges you? An employee of the U.S. Forest Service in Alaska recently faced just that scenario. Although it was not bear season in the Last Frontier State, he was justified in killing the bear in self defense. He was out deer hunting when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his 7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the...

Mike Mungoven had two thoughts flood his mind as he stumbled into a large grizzly on his morning run off North Fork Road on Sunday. "I looked up at this huge bear standing just two feet in front of me, the sun shining off its golden-brown fur," Mungoven said. "I remember thinking, 'Wow, that's just beautiful.' And then, 'Oh boy, this is going to hurt.'" ~snip~"I always run with my dogs, and remind them to be careful around this particular area because the forest there is more dense with black spruce," Mungoven said. "Next thing I knew, I heard some...

Part of the problem is that the people who decide national policy are headquartered in Washington, D.C., where large plots of private property are rare. Those of us who live in urban or suburban areas imagine endangered species protection to be as simple as being kind to blue whales, grizzly bears and bald eagles. We don’t stop to consider the dilemmas facing people thousands of miles away from us. Bill Snape, Chairman of the Endangered Species Coalition, is an example of one who lives in either ignorance or denial. “There just aren’t private landowners that I can identify where the...

David Attenborough is 80 in May, but he has been such a steady, visible presence in our lives .............................. .................................................... It is a brusqueness reflected in his views about the natural world. Attenborough refers to the "irrational romanticism" which dominates so much natural history coverage, including, he suggests, the films March of the Penguins and Born Free. "I mean, Elsa the lioness is a story which is entirely based on violence. George Adamson shot Elsa's mother in the first place; they sustained the cub by killing antelope themselves and giving her half-dead antelope so that she could toy with them...

Suit says state at fault in grizzly mauling... The widow of a hunter mauled by a grizzly bear while he was gutting an elk has filed an appeal with the Montana Supreme Court after a district judge here dismissed her lawsuit against the state. Mary Ann Hilston contends negligent management practices led to the death of her husband...in the fall of 2001. She filed a lawsuit in federal court in September 2004, claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks knew there was an aggressive grizzly bear with two cubs prowling the...

Grizzly mauls boy in Alaska Sunday, July 24, 2005 Associated Press Anchorage, Alaska — A 15-year-old boy from Texas who was attacked by a grizzly bear was recovering at an Anchorage hospital from bites to his legs and arms. The attack occurred Friday while Alex Benson and his Boy Scout troop were wrapping up a 42-kilometre hike. Alex apparently startled the bear on the trail, just half an hour from the end of the hike. He was bitten at least twice before the bear ran off. The boy was left with a shredded arm and puncture wounds in his leg....

Much of the detail surrounding the grizzly bear attack that left 52-year-old Joanne Saunders with a ripped-up leg and a broken nose is largely a blur in memory, but the Virginia tourist does recall the speed of the animal that grabbed her just above the ankle Monday in Denali National Park and Preserve. "They're fast,'' she said. "I had no idea they could be so fast. They're just there." Saunders and her husband, James, 54, were atop an 8- to 9-foot rock outcropping near Savage River looking for a hiking route back to the park road when the bear materialized...