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Bears on the Move

A hunter scouting in southwest Montana near Ennis was mauled not once, but twice, yet lived to tell about it

By Rob Breeding

There has been plenty of drama involving grizzly bears this fall, none more so than the case of that hunter scouting in southwest Montana near Ennis who was mauled not once, but twice, yet lived to tell about it.

Accounts suggest Todd Orr was doing all the right things. He was making noise, and when he came upon a grizzly sow that charged, he opened up a can of pepper spray hurt on the bruin. Unfortunately, this time bear spray didn’t stop the attack.

Once the bear let up after that first attack Orr made a beeline for his truck. Sadly, the bear followed and attacked a second time. Orr survived and then recorded the details of his ordeal on a selfie video before driving himself to a hospital in Ennis.

Orr’s story will no doubt rekindle the guns-vs.-bear-spray debate. That’s unfortunate. Bear spray remains the best choice for personal defense against bears in the backcountry. I will not begrudge those who insist on carrying firearms as their first line of defense. It’s your right. But in most instances, bear spray is the better option.

What’s unusual in Orr’s case is that the attack persisted, and was then repeated, after the bear was sprayed. The idea behind bear spray is that while it may not prevent contact from a charging bruin, that capsaicin blast to the face will so overwhelm the bear’s sensitive nose, eyes and throat that it will be in too much pain to bother biting you.

That’s not what happen to Orr. But every bear and every attack are different. Maybe he didn’t hit the bear with a direct shot, or maybe this bear was just so angry the pain didn’t matter. But one incident, one that seems outside the norm of typical human-bear encounters, does not change the basic equation that bear spray will usually lead to better results than will firearms, unless you can guarantee a kill shot to the head.

Bears have been everywhere this fall. There were reports a month ago of grizzly bears in the Sweetgrass Hills. And last week a Stevensville man raised quite a kerfuffle when he posted a photo of a grizzly bear roaming a pasture near a worried black Angus cow on Facebook. He didn’t post any information about where the photograph was taken, and when other’s commented asking questions about where the bear was spotted, he didn’t reply.

So folks, noticing he was posting from the Bitterroot, assumed the pasture was on the Bitterroot Valley’s west side, near Kootenai Creek. Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials eventually tracked down the poster who confirmed the photo was taken some time ago and on the Rocky Mountain Front.

There have long been rumors of grizzly bears in the Bitterroot Mountains. Those rumors have persisted with such frequency for so long that I tend to believe them. There may not be breeding-age females with cubs in those mountains, but I suspect there are young griz wandering through that country from time to time. Certainly, grizzlies are exploring the surrounding area as the increasing number of confirmed sightings in the nearby Big Hole suggests.

If they are not already in the Bitterroot it seems just a matter of time.

There is also gathering momentum — at least in communities surrounding the Park— to remove Endangered Species Act protection for the bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. That population has grown from less than 200 in the 1970s to more than 700 today, and possibly as many as 1,200 depending on the method used to estimate the number of bears.

That may not seem like a lot, but for grizzly bears it may be plenty. It’s an animal anyone who loves the outdoors and nature has to admire and respect. But as Mr. Orr can attest, that respect is best expressed as infrequently as possible, preferably from great distance.