NorCal woman with ID while towing wagon from tent, killed by grizzly bear in Montana

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Wildlife officials said Wednesday that a bear pulled a woman out of her tent in a small Montana town in the middle of the night and killed her before fellow campers used bear spray to force the bear out of the area.

Leah Davis Lucan, 65, of Chico, California, was on a long bike ride and made a stop in the western Montana town of Ovando when she was killed early Tuesday morning, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials said. attack.

Lucan was killed on the bears’ second visit to the site where she was camping with two fellow cyclists near the post office, officials said.

Officials said the 400-pound (181 kg) bears woke up the two campers around 3 a.m. They said they took food from their tents, secured it and went back to sleep.

Wildlife officials said surveillance video from a city company showed the bear around a building from the post office about 15 minutes later.

At about 4:15 a.m., the mayor’s office received a 911 call after two people in a tent near the victim were awakened by the sounds of the attack, said Gavin Russell, Powell County Sheriff. They released bear spray, and the bear ran away.

It is also believed that the bear entered a chicken coop in the city that night, killed and ate several chickens.

Officials searched by helicopter for the gray hairs again on Wednesday but were unable to find him.

“At this point, our best chance of catching this bear will be sewage traps placed in the area near the chicken coop where the bear has killed and eaten several chickens,” said Randy Arnold, Missoula Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional supervisor in Missoula.

Greg Lemon, a spokesperson for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the bear would be killed if it was found.

The agency said investigators have obtained DNA from the bear at the scene of the attack and will be able to compare it with any debris they can identify.

Mary Flowers, a friend of the victim from Chico, said Lucan, a registered nurse who worked at a hospital in Chico, had been looking forward to the bike trip in Montana for several months. Flores said Lucan had previously taken long-distance bike trips and had been accompanied by her sister and friend.

“She loved that kind of adventure. A woman in her sixties, dealing with this kind of thing — she had a passion for life out of the ordinary,” Flowers said.

Grizzly bears have faced increased conflict with humans in the northern Rockies over the past decade as federally protected animals expanded into new territories and more people lived and recreated in the area. That prompted calls from elected officials in neighboring Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to lift protections so the animals can be hunted.

Ovando, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Helena, is a community of no more than 100 people on the edge of Bob Marshall’s sprawling wilderness.

North of Ovando is a vast expanse of forest and mountains, including Glacier National Park that extends into Canada and is home to an estimated 1,000 grizzlies. It is the largest concentration of Bruins in the neighboring United States

Fatal attacks are rare in the region. There have been three cases in the past 20 years, including Tuesday’s bombing, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2001, a hunter was killed by a grizzly along with two cubs while killing an elk in the Wildlife Management Area west of Ovando. The three animals were shot and killed by wildlife officials days later.

Over the past 20 years, there have been eight fatal strikes on people by grizzlies from a separate group of about 700 bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. In April, a grizzly bear killed a country guide while hunting along the park border in southwest Montana.

Bears that attack people are not always killed if the beating results from a sudden confrontation or if the bear is defending its young. But Lemon said the bear involved in Lucan’s death was considered a threat to public safety due to the circumstances of the attack.

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