Grizzly killer told to pay $15,000

A Ferndale man who illegally killed three grizzly bears last year was sentenced to three years probation, including 60 days in a pre-release center, and ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution on Tuesday.

Dan Calvert Wallen was sentenced in U.S. Magistrate Court in Missoula.

Wallen was found guilty March 30 of shooting and killing the three grizzlies with a .22 rifle after they were attracted to his chicken coop in May 2014. The maximum fine for each count of taking an unlawful species is six months in jail and a $25,000 fine.

The sentence was put on hold pending an appeal.

Wallen’s public defender, John Rhodes, said his client intends to appeal but wouldn’t comment on the specific issues he plans to contest. The appeal must be made within the next 14 days.

Court documents state Wallen shot three grizzly bears with a .22 rifle on May 27, 2014, but only one dead bear was found that day. The other bears were found on May 28 and June 4 near Wallen’s home.

According to Fish, Wildlife and Parks Wildlife Management Specialist Tim Manley, the bears were all juveniles, weighing about 150 pounds each.

Two were females, and by the time the last grizzly was found it was too decomposed to determine its gender.

Court documents state that on the evening of May 27, Wallen was in his yard with family and friends when three grizzlies entered the yard and went for a chicken coop where they had killed several chickens the night before.

Wallen chased the bears off in his truck and returned to the house. About 15 minutes later the bears came back and went for the chickens again. Wallen used his truck to corral the bears at the edge of his neighbor’s property and returned to the house.

He could still see the bears in a field a long distance away, and retrieved a .22 rifle from the house and began cleaning up chicken carcasses from the yard.

Wallen gave three conflicting accounts about the events that followed, court documents state.

On May 27, Wallen told Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Chuck Bartos that the bear had come into the yard while he was picking up the chicken carcasses, and he shot at it twice to scare it away.

He was surprised, documents state, when his neighbor called to say there was an injured bear in the driveway between their houses. Seeing the bear could only move its head, the neighbor shot and killed it.

It wasn’t until the next day, when the state officials were examining the scene and discovered another dead grizzly bear, that Wallen volunteered additional information, documents say.

Wallen said that shortly before the grizzly appeared in his yard, two other grizzlies had broken into the chicken coop. He then fired two shots at the bears, which ran off.

During the investigation, Wallen told U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Brian Lakes that he was 40 yards from the two bears when they came running back into his yard from behind his garage. He said they were heading toward the chickens, so he fired several shots to scare them off.

In his trial testimony, Wallen said he was standing 15 feet from the bears when they appeared from behind the garage. He said he felt as if they were running toward him when he fired the first shot and about 20 seconds later he fired another shot.

However, conflicts in three different versions of the event given by Wallen led the court to ultimately conclude: “Wallen’s trial testimony as it pertains to his claim that he acted in defense of himself or others is simply not credible.”

Reporter Sally Finneran of the Bigfork Eagle contributed to this story.