A mother grizzly andtwo of her three cubs havebeen captured after a bearkilled a Michigan man andinjured two other people duringan overnight rampage in acampground near YellowstoneNational Park.
The sow, estimated toweigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured Wednesday evening into a trap fashionedfrom culvert pipe covered by the dead victim’s tent. The bear tore down thetent and was caught in the trap, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parksspokesman Ron Aasheim.
By Thursday morning, two of the year-old bears had been caught andthe third could be heard nearby, calling out to its mother.
Montana wildlife officials on Thursday identified the man killed in themauling as Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich. The bear pulledKammer out his tent and dragged him 25 feet to where his body was found,Aasheim said.
The other victims, Deb Freele of Ontario, Canada, and an unidentifiedman, have been hospitalizedin Cody, Wyo.
Parks warden Capt.
Sam Sheppard described therampage — in which campersin three different tents weremauled as they slept — ashighly unusual.
“She basically targetedthe three people and went after them,” Sheppard said. “It wasn’t like an archeryhunter who gets between a sow and her cubs and she responds to protect them.”
Freele said Thursday that she was bitten on her arm and leg before sheinstinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone.
Appearing on network morning shows from a Wyoming hospital,Freele said she woke up just before the bear bit her arm.
“I screamed, he bit harder. I screamed harder, he continued to bite,”
she said, adding that she could hear her bones breaking. “I told myself, playdead,” she said. “I went totally limp. As soon as I went limp, I could feel hisjaws get loose and then he let me go.”
Freele said the bear was silent.
“This, to me, was just an absolutely freaky thing,” she said. “I have tobelieve that the bear was not normal. It was very quiet; it never made anynoise. I felt like it was hunting me.”
The male survivor suffered puncture wounds on his calf.
The bear attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the
