A hunter from Idaho is lucky to be alive after a sow grizzly viciously attacked him south of Livingston, Montana. Bob Legasa and partner Greg Gibson stepped out of dense vegetation onto a road and came face-to-face with the grizzly and her cub.
“I put my arms in front of me. I had my bow in one hand and had my arm out. She tried to get me into a bear hug headlock,” Legasa told the Coeur d’Alene Press. “She grabbed onto my arm and had it in her mouth. I was knocked over on my butt and at that point I was kicking and screaming trying to move her away.”
Gibson sprayed the bear two different times with bear spray but that did not stop the attack. A third blast finally sent the bears away. Legasa suffered a broken arm and puncture wounds to his face, arm and wrist.
“They’re just not afraid of anything. Having these types of encounters, they need to be relocated to an area that’s not populated. If they could trap the bear and move it, that would be great. They’ve grown to a large population and there needs to be some management on it so we can lessen the population and the impact that we’re having with these confrontations with humans,” Legasa told the Coeur d’Alene Press.
Livingston is approximately 65 miles north of Yellowstone. Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Area killed seven people since 2010 and attacked numerous others including hunters, hikers, campers and those conducting research.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation maintains that grizzly bears should fall under the umbrella of state management since state agencies manage elk, mountains lions, wolves, deer and other wildlife.