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TRIMBLE, Colo. (KDVR) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife said a woman was found dead off U.S. Highway 550 after a suspected bear attack on Friday. According to her boyfriend, the 39-year-old victim was believed to have gone walking with her two dogs earlier Friday, La Plata County Sheriff’s office said. Her boyfriend told police he got home around 8:30 p.m. and the dogs were present but his girlfriend was not there. After searching for her, he found her body around 9:30 p.m. and called 911. When CPW wildlife officers responded, they found signs of consumption on the body and an...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- On the afternoon of 15 April 2021, Carl Mock was attacked by a grizzly bear near Baker’s Hole Campground in Gallatin County, Montana. The campground is a few miles from the town of West Yellowstone, near an entrance to Yellowstone Park. Mock was able to dial 911. Several agencies responded to the call at about 3:42 p.m. The first responders were able to find Mock after about 50 minutes of searching.Mock had “sustained significant scalp and facial injuries” according to the Gallatin County Sheriff Search and Rescue Facebook page. Localnews8.com gave more details of the injuries:Authorities say the...

Before I graduated from high school, I overheard the older brother of a close friend talking about shooting a bear. The bear had been discovered in a den, during the Wisconsin deer season. As I recall, in 1968, such a harvest would have been legal.The older brother was a Vietnam veteran. He approached the den with another vet. The brother suggested the other vet poke into the den to see if the bear were still there.The other veteran said no, he would not do it. The brother said, well, in Vietnam, you went into holes to get Charlie.Whereupon, the other...

Grizzly BearKen Ledeau is a semi-retired trucker who rented a cabin near Dupuyer, Montana. He loved the area, the views, and the wildlife he would see while walking for exercise. He would walk up and down a finger ridge on one side of Dupuyer Creek drainage. The land was mostly open on the ridge, while the creek had dense stands of willow trees and other vegetation.Ken was 59 years old when the bear attacked him.Neighbors in the Dupuyer area had warned him about the dangers of grizzly bears in the area. He had taken their advice and was carrying a...

A black bear attacked a woman and her two dogs in Collier County on Christmas Eve morning. Kathleen Boyle said Friday that her two dogs, one ironically named Bear, and her other pup, Robin, helped save her from a bear they ran into on their morning walk in the Fiddler’s Creek community. “It wasn’t until probably 11:30, 12 o’clock that I stopped shaking,” Boyle said. “Because it was that trauma, ‘I can’t believe this just happened.’” Boyle’s two Westies are show dogs, but they didn’t worry about manners when a bear approached them and their owner. “So here you’ve got...

While researching pistol uses in self-defense from bears, I noticed the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) bear mortality database listed a self-defense killing on 8 August of 2009. The database did not indicate what kind of firearm might have been used. Years later, Bridger Petrini gave me a lead to the person who had been attacked and had defended himself with a .41 magnum single-action revolver.Tanner Allen, who lives in Wyoming, is an accomplished hunting dog trainer and dog breeder. His hounds are sought after by big game hunters to improve their packs. They are noted for their ability to trail...

“An Investigation of Factors Influencing Bear Spray Performance” was published on 1 October 2020 in the Journal of Wildlife Management. The lead investigator was Tom Smith, of Brigham Young University.Tom Smith is well known for his publications on bear spray and firearms effectiveness when dealing with bears.Tom Smith graciously supplied me with a copy of the full paper, which shows all the results of the study. The study provides useful information, which can help in choosing between bear spray and other systems, such as firearms, as well as in understanding some of the limitations of bear spray under different...

Image screenshot of a video from wfla.com, by Keith Parker 1 September, 2020 Lake Tahoe, CA. Cropped and scaled by Dean Weingarten Large black bear entering convenience store. Not the bear shot in the story. The above picture was taken about 25-30 miles from where a black bear was shot by the homeowner in Galena, Nevada, a bit South of Reno. That is an easy day travel distance for a bear. The bear pictured is not the bear that was shot.On June 19, at about 2:30 a.m., a homeowner in Galena, Nevada, just south of Reno, head noises as if...

In the 23 years Bill and Stephanie Williams have owned a cabin in Creede, Colorado they never had any problems with animals on their property. But that all changed on the night of July 23 after an encounter with a 250-pound black bear that crashed into the Conroe couple’s cabin. Bill Williams was able to bring down the bear with a rifle but it was a harrowing night they won’t soon forget. The Williams have lived in Conroe for 27 years. Stephanie Williams is a watercolor artist and in the 1990s she met fellow watercolor artist Stephen Quiller who was...

Most conflicts between bears and humans are not reported to the authorities. Of those which are reported, only a small number are reported in the local or national media. Of those reported in the media, many do not include information about the firearms used. A few months ago, Editor-in-Chief Fredy Rehl of AmmoLand News and I were discussing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests which might result in information of interest to AmmoLand News readers. I suggested FOIA requests be submitted to agencies dealing with bear attacks. Fredy's persistence and hard work have borne fruit. A FOIA request to the...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- On 29 July, 2020, Daniel Schilling went to clear trail about a mile from his cabin in Alaska. His dog returned home without him. His wife was very concerned. Searchers found his body, killed by a bear, where he was working. An empty can of bear spray, with the safety off, which had been discharged at the site, was also found. From adfg.alaska.gov: August 6, 2020 (Anchorage) – Employees of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) responded to the location of a fatal bear attack that occurred Wednesday, July 29, near the community of Hope, to...

Stephanie Blais, 44, was killed on Thursday after she was attacked by the black bear outside the cabin at McKie Lake, near Buffalo Narrows . Blais had been on the phone with her father, Hubert Esquirol, at the time of the attack. Her nine-year-old son watched horrifically from inside the cabin . A conservation officer said that the bear attack was unprovoked. They also said the bear was not hungry and had a stomach full of berries. A Canadian woman was fatally mauled by a bear while outside her family's cabin while on the phone with her father, and to...

Fire Tower Bear Attack, 1958 Black-Bear iStock-648818154 It was dark outside the little cabin near the fire tower in the Oregon mountains in 1958. Eight-year-old David Conner and his two younger sisters had gone to bed. He had not yet fallen asleep. It was quiet.His mother's screams sundered the peaceful night.  Time and memories would be divided into two parts. Before the night of the bear, and after.He jumped from the bed and scrambled toward the kitchen. The kitchen light was on. On his left was his mother. On the right was the kitchen window over the sink, with a...

The incident happened late in the evening when the hiker encountered a sow with a cub at close range according to Fish Wildlife and Parks. The hiker shot the grizzly with a pistol after it attacked and bit him in the thigh. After the injured bear moved off, the hiker walked back to his house in Dupuyer. FWP says the grizzly’s behavior indicated it attacked to protect her cub from a perceived threat posed by the hiker. The injured grizzly was found the next morning and euthanized by FWP personnel.

Gregg and dog On Thursday night, 7 November, 2019 a little after 11 p.m., at the Motel 6 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Greg Sapp was on the walkway outside of his and his wife, Viki's motel room on the second floor. He was getting a smoke. He did not know he would be emptying his Kimber .45 into a charging black bear within seconds. Link to video He was facing outward from the motel. Room 240 has one wall in common with the outside of the motel, with another in common with the breezeway that connects to the rooms on...

Details of .22 Pistol Defense Failure against Polar Bear in Norway; iStock-940461304 I suspect much of the mythology about the difficulty of penetrating bear skulls with bullets is based on the position of a bear's brain inside of those skulls. The volume of a large bear's brain is a little more or less than a pint (473 ml). The volume of a large bear's head is about 2 1/2  gallons (9.46 l) or more. The brain, to many, is unexpectedly low and narrow. It is easy to shoot a bear in the head and miss the brain. It is easy...

Video footage has emerged of a circus bear attacking a trainer Olonets town, in the western Karelia region of Russia. The 600lb bear was prodded with an electric shock device to stop the attack. The severity of the trainers injuries were not known.

Details of .22 Pistol Defense Failure against Polar Bear in Norway; iStock-940461304 U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- While searching for cases where pistols were used to defend against bears, three failures have been found. In the last published results, of 73 cases, that was a 4% failure rate. The very small sample size means a few cases can change the percentages of success or failure significantly.  It is useful to know what happened in each case to determine how the failures and successes occurred. The three failures involved the three species of North American bears. One case involving a polar bear and a...

On 16 September 2019, Chris Gregersen and Donivan Cambell were bow hunting elk in Montana, in the Gravelly Mountains, when they were attacked by a grizzly bear. They had gone out for an afternoon hunt, and had hunted up steep drainage, climbed the opposite slope, and had been calling for elk on the opposite side of the ridge with a bugle call.They were returning to their truck and camp. They stopped calling on the top of the ridge, crested the ridge, and were on a steep downward slope, moving toward the creek at the bottom, on an old game...

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- Two pairs of archery hunters were attacked by a grizzly bear or bears in Montana, in the Gravelly Mountains. The attacks occurred within 11 hours and one mile from each other.  Because of the proximity, it is suspected the same bear was involved in both attacks.The attacks are remarkably similar with an interesting difference. In one, the hunters used bear spray. In the other, they used 9 mm handguns.  From mt.gov: The first attack happened about 7:30 a.m. when two archery hunters from New Mexico were following elk tracks south of Cottonwood Creek, west of Black Butte....