Kalispell hunter attacked by grizzly

BOZEMAN (AP) — Wildlife officials say a Kalispell bow hunter is recovering after a grizzly bear mauled him in the southern Gravelly Mountains near Ennis, just 3 1/2 miles from where a similar attack happened less than a week earlier.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says 49-year-old Kim Wunderlich of Kalispell was hunting with a partner in the Cascade Creek area Friday when the female grizzly with two cubs knocked him down and bit him once on the inner thigh.

Wunderlich was taken to a hospital in Dillon and has since been released.

Wunderlich was attacked in the same area that Matt Menge of Bozeman was mauled Sept. 12. The attack left Menge with a broken right forearm and large cuts to the head.

State game warden Sam Sheppard said there is nothing to suggest that both attacks involved the same bear.

He said bears probably are attracted to the area because elk hunters have been leaving behind gut piles.

“It’s kind of a little cycle,” he said. “You have a fair number of elk, get some elk hunters, elk hunters have some success and put some carcasses on the ground, with carcasses on the ground, you have bears.”

Fish, Wildlife and Parks has posted signs in the area warning hunters of the danger of traveling in bear country and recommends they carry pepper spray.

Sheppard said Monday there are no plans to close the area to hunting because it is such a broad expanse of land.

“We’d potentially have to close 20 sections,” he said. “There are bears, grizzly bears, in southwest Montana and we just have to figure out how to safely hunt in those areas where those things overlap.”