Vern Evans
A Montana bowhunter had to be rescued from a tree by helicopter Saturday after a close encounter with a grizzly bear. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks explains in a press release that the hunter was in the Gallatin Range backcountry when he encountered the sow grizzly with two large cubs at close range. The hunter climbed a nearby tree but the sow charged him anyway, according to MFWP. The hunter shot the bear from the tree, and the injured sow remained nearby while he waited in the tree and called for help.
MFWP officials were notified of the incident and they dispatched a helicopter to the location that afternoon. State grizzly bear specialists and game wardens found the hunter uninjured and still in the tree, and they helped transport him to safety. Officials also found and dispatched the injured sow nearby, but they were unable to find any cubs or cub tracks in the area.
The hunter called 911 to report his location around 2 p.m., according to the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, which received the initial call. The GCSO gave its own summary of events in an Oct. 7 Facebook post, noting that “the hunter defended themself by shooting the bear with a pistol before climbing the tree.”
This is slightly different from MFWP’s version, in which the hunter climbed the tree before he shot the bear. Montana officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday to provide clarity on the sequence of events.
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It’s unlikely the agency would provide additional details about the encounter anyway, since the incident being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is standard procedure with incidents involving humans and grizzly bears, as Montana grizzlies are still federally protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The USFWS has been fairly busy with these investigations so far this year. A similar incident took place in Idaho earlier this hunting season, when two bowhunters shot and killed an attacking boar grizzly near Henrys Lake west of Yellowstone National Park. Saturday’s encounter in the Gallatin Range marks the third time (and the second this elk season) that hunters have shot and killed grizzly bears in Montana in 2024.
On Sept. 9, two bowhunters shot and killed a charging grizzly sow with cubs near West Yellowstone, Montana, according to MFWP. (The hunters also shot and injured one of the cubs but it was never found.) And back in April, a shed hunter who was charged by a grizzly near Wolf Creek shot and killed the bear with his handgun. Both hunters claimed self-defense, although it’s unclear if the USFWS has completed these investigations.
This year’s number of deadly encounters between outdoorsmen and grizzlies in the northern Rockies aligns closely with 2023. There were at least seven recorded incidents in Montana and Idaho that year involving hunters and anglers who killed grizzly bears in self-defense. And if you include the Idaho homeowner who shot a charging grizzly in his driveway this summer, the 2024 tally is currently five dead grizzlies. It will still be several weeks or months until grizzlies in the region begin to hibernate.
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These encounters come as some Western big-game hunters point to a rise in human-grizzly conflicts, and as lawmakers in Idaho and Montana continue their calls for grizzlies to be delisted so the bears can be managed by the states.
“Weird. Year after year, [grizzlies] are killed by hunters and there’s still [grizzlies],” one social media user wrote in response to MFWP’s Facebook post about the bowhunter who was treed by a bear over the weekend. “It’s as if they can sustain their population.”
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