Bowhunter InjuredGARDINER, Mont. (AP) -- A bow hunter was mauled by a grizzly bear north of Gardiner Saturday morning, while hunters in another area reported shooting a grizzly bear they encountered in the afternoon, officials said.
Bow hunters "try to have no scent whatsoever. They try to be really quiet. They have camouflage on," said Mel Frost, a spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "They're doing everything that's great for bow hunting that might not be great for being in grizzly bear country, so they have to really be careful."
A Whitewater man in his 20s was hunting for elk with two friends when a grizzly bear with three cubs "got a whiff of him, apparently, and rolled him over," said Mel Frost, a spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
The hunter wasn't injured too badly, but had a puncture wound to his shoulder and a gash on his hamstring, Frost said.
"He remembered to play dead, so she bit on him and left," Frost said.
He was treated at the hospital in Livingston. His name hasn't been released.
The morning mauling led to a second closure of the Beattie Gulch area in three weeks.
It occurred within a mile of where bow hunter Dustin Flack of Belgrade was mauled by a grizzly with three cubs on Sept. 14. Officials say there's no way to find out of the same bear was involved.
Obviously Beattie Gulch has grizzly bears, Frost said.
"Nobody had bear spray," she said. "It's something that we can't emphasize enough."
One of the hunters shot at the bear, but there's no evidence the bear was hit, Frost said.
Officers had just finished investigating the mauling when they got a call that two bow hunters from Pennsylvania encountered a female grizzly and a year-old cub in the Tom Miner basin northwest of Gardiner.
The bear came at them and they discharged pepper spray, but the bear veered around them, turned around and came back. One of them said he shot her with a gun and killed her, Frost said. Frost encouraged people who encounter bears to try pepper spray first, even though it didn't deter the bear in the case.
"Pepper spray often works," she said.
The mauling led to a closure that includes the Beattie Gulch area from the Beattie Gulch trailhead to the north where the national forest borders private land. The closure extends south to the Yellowstone National Park border and about 2.5 miles west of the trailhead.
The second encounter led to a temporary closure of Sundance Road, just up from Tom Miner Campground, Frost said. Wardens plan to go into the area Sunday to confirm that the bear was killed.
