A brown bear shot last week near the start of Small Tracts Road may still be alive, according to state wildlife trooper Ricky Merritt.
“People in that neighborhood should be watchful,” Merritt said this week.
Merritt was notified Aug. 28 that a bear had been shot two days earlier. On questioning, a resident there confirmed he’d shot at the bear twice at 11 p.m. Aug. 26 after it had gotten into his chicken coop, then returned.
“The bear basically punched his paw through chicken wire and took a chicken out,” Merritt said.
The man reported shooting at the bear once from a distance of 15 feet with a .444 rifle, and hitting it in the shoulder. He fired at it again as it ran off.
Merritt said he was able to follow a faint blood trail about 400 yards into the woods heading toward town until sign of the animal disappeared.
“If it was shot anywhere in the shoulder, the chances of it surviving are not very good, but if that was the case, we should have seen more blood than we saw. The shot placement may be questionable… There’s a possibility the bear was wounded and may not be dead,” Merritt said.
The bear is believed to be up to 10 feet, and recently traveled in the area of Fort Seward and the landfill. “It has one of those paw prints you look at and say, ‘Is there really an animal this big around here?’”
The shooter was within his rights taking the animal, Merritt said. Residents of the home had reported a bear knocking out two windows on their front porch in early July, and muddy prints were still on the glass there.
“When a bear gets into your livestock, you have a right to defend your lifestock,” the trooper said.
However, Merritt said he advised the resident to get an electric fence around the coop. “The problem may have been taken care of with this bear, but with chickens, he’s going to have issues with other bears. He said he was willing to get fencing.”
If problems were to continue after electric fencing was installed, Merritt said he would talk to wildlife biologists about taking an animal, but he said that would be only after other means were exhausted.
Residents should be aware that bears this time of year are looking to bulk up, Merritt said. “We’re having a lot of bear issues. The ones who need food are really looking. This time of year we stress for people to keep food and other attractants where bears can’t get them.”