Just reading this gives me the willies........Yee-haw, indeed.
hillbilly
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/NewsE...mmand=search&db=news.db&eqskudata=0-734891-41
Two aggressive grizzly bears have been shot, one by a hunter and one by a Fortine homeowner.
A Kalispell man shot a stalking grizzly bear in the Swan Mountains and a Fortine man shot a grizzly at close range, narrowly escaping as the bear charged from a chicken coop.
James Beeman picked up a .410-gauge shotgun when he went outside his Fortine-area home to investigate a commotion from his chicken coop around 4 a.m. Sunday.
Wearing a headlamp and expecting a skunk, Beeman saw two bear cubs run from the damaged door of the chicken coop. Then an adult grizzly bear emerged with a chicken in its mouth.
The bear dropped the chicken and charged from 15 feet. Beeman fired, with the muzzle of the gun roughly three feet from the bear, which crumpled to ground, dead at Beeman's feet.
It turned out to be an astounding shot, considering a .410 is a light gun and the shell contained a light load typically used for quail hunting.
But it hit the bear squarely in the nose, the only soft, vulnerable place on a grizzly skull. Pellets likely penetrated the length of the nasal cavity to the brain. The wad from the shell was imbedded in the bear's nose.
"What's the likelihood of that?" said Ed Kelly, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden captain in Kalispell. "I know guys with .375s who couldn't have made a kill like that. He's just a lucky, lucky guy."
Kelly said the shooting was a "justifiable case of self defense."
The bear was a 350-pound female.
Warden Jim Roberts and Tim Manley, the grizzly bear management specialist in Northwest Montana, have been pursuing the bear's two cubs-of-the-year. At one point, the cubs were chased high up a tree, too high to dart with sedatives because of the risk of them being hurt in a fall.
hillbilly
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/NewsE...mmand=search&db=news.db&eqskudata=0-734891-41
Two aggressive grizzly bears have been shot, one by a hunter and one by a Fortine homeowner.
A Kalispell man shot a stalking grizzly bear in the Swan Mountains and a Fortine man shot a grizzly at close range, narrowly escaping as the bear charged from a chicken coop.
James Beeman picked up a .410-gauge shotgun when he went outside his Fortine-area home to investigate a commotion from his chicken coop around 4 a.m. Sunday.
Wearing a headlamp and expecting a skunk, Beeman saw two bear cubs run from the damaged door of the chicken coop. Then an adult grizzly bear emerged with a chicken in its mouth.
The bear dropped the chicken and charged from 15 feet. Beeman fired, with the muzzle of the gun roughly three feet from the bear, which crumpled to ground, dead at Beeman's feet.
It turned out to be an astounding shot, considering a .410 is a light gun and the shell contained a light load typically used for quail hunting.
But it hit the bear squarely in the nose, the only soft, vulnerable place on a grizzly skull. Pellets likely penetrated the length of the nasal cavity to the brain. The wad from the shell was imbedded in the bear's nose.
"What's the likelihood of that?" said Ed Kelly, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden captain in Kalispell. "I know guys with .375s who couldn't have made a kill like that. He's just a lucky, lucky guy."
Kelly said the shooting was a "justifiable case of self defense."
The bear was a 350-pound female.
Warden Jim Roberts and Tim Manley, the grizzly bear management specialist in Northwest Montana, have been pursuing the bear's two cubs-of-the-year. At one point, the cubs were chased high up a tree, too high to dart with sedatives because of the risk of them being hurt in a fall.
