HELENA, Mont. — Wildlife officials set traps, installed wilderness cameras and scouted the woods by helicopter Thursday for the bear that attacked and killed a U.S. Forest Service employee as he rode a mountain bike along a trail outside Glacier National Park.
Brad Treat, 38, was knocked off his bike Wednesday after he and another rider apparently surprised the bear — a grizzly, according to initial and still-unconfirmed accounts — in the Flathead National Forest, authorities said. The other rider, a relative of Treat’s whose name was not released, went to get help and was not hurt.
Bears that attack humans are killed if it is found that they displayed predatory behavior, such as stalking the person, or consumed their victim.
In this case, officials said is too soon to say what will be done to the bear if it is found. They are trying to determine if it was a mother with cubs, whether it was protecting a food cache nearby or whether it simply reacted to the sudden appearance of the bikers, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said.
“One of the things that is key to all this is whether it was a predatory act,” Aasheim said. “I don’t think there’s any sense that this was predatory.”
Wildlife officials set traps near the trail, flew low over the trees and hoped cameras would spot the bear — but had turned up nothing as of Thursday afternoon.
There was no telling whether the bear was still in the area, and it was unclear just how long the search would continue.
“We’re taking it one day at a time, seeing what results we get,” said another FWP spokesman, John Fraley. “You just can’t predict what a bear is going to do.”
Part of the difficulty is that bears can range for miles and the area is dense with grizzlies, authorities said. There are an estimated 1,000 in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which includes the park.
To confirm whether they have the right bear, wildlife officials typically collect DNA from the animal to compare it with evidence at the scene, analyze bite marks and other injuries on the victim, and examine the animal’s claws, jaws and feces for human remains.
Wildlife officials said they are testing DNA to establish whether it was a grizzly or a black bear that killed Treat. However, they won’t know until next week whether the samples they collected at the site of the attack will be usable, Fraley said. If a bear is trapped, wildlife officials would have to hold it until then.
