14 Black Bears Killed at One House in Bozeman After Alleged Feeding 🐻

ven•a•tic: fond of or living by hunting

NORTH AMERICA’S MOST-READ OUTDOOR NEWSLETTER

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE THOUGHT THEY WERE PETS
FOURTEEN BLACK BEARS KILLED AT ONE HOUSE NORTH OF BOZEMAN AFTER ALLEGED FEEDING

After making a difficult wildlife management decision, Montana wildlife officers were forced to remove 15 black bears from a single residence just north of Bozeman last week. Out of the 15 bears, 14 of them were killed by wildlife officials while one cub was taken alive to the state’s Montana WILD facility in Helena with hopes of being placed at an accredited zoo.

Reports indicate that game wardens and wildlife staff with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks were on the property September 24th and 25th after a concerned citizen reported that someone was feeding wild black bears there. What they found, FWP says, was a concentration of bears that were extremely food-conditioned and had completely lost their fear of people…

🦩 A Minnesota Bird Hunter and his Brittany Flush…an Emu?!? Heading out on his first grouse hunt with his nearly two-year-old Brittany named Griffin, Mike Siebert’s day was going like many other bird hunts had started before. With a couple of early flushes, a porcupine that got a little too close to comfort, ten miles on foot and lunch at the truck, it wasn’t until a woman caught up with him in search of something that she had lost that things went a little sideways.

The woman went on to tell Mike that she had misplaced an escaped emu like a set of car keys and was desperate to get her back. Mike said he hadn’t come across anything of the sort, and told her he’d keep an eye out as the two eventually went their separate ways. Sure enough, just a few more minutes down the trail, Griffin locked up like he’d found the grouse of the year, just as Siebert rounded the corner into a bird that just so happened to be the same height as him.

Mike later recounted that the large bird closed the distance fast, stared at his feet like they were a problem, and when he laid the shotgun down she pecked it forty or fifty times as he fended her off with a six-foot stick. Soon realizing he wasn’t getting out of there without a bit of harassment, Mike grabbed his shotgun and beelined it out of the woods with the emu in pursuit. She finally gave up, but not before a couple of grouse flushed (naturally) and he was met by a dude on an e-bike who was looking for “that emu” as well. Thankfully both Mike and Griffin managed to escape the wrath of the jailbroken ratite, and as of Tuesday night, the flightless bird remained at large in the woods of east-central Minnesota.

🙏 Update: Victim Named in Wheeler County Night-Hunt Shooting Incident. Authorities have identified the 23-year-old killed in the early-morning hunting incident near Alamo, Georgia as Thomas “Cooper” Hartley of Glenwood. The shooting happened around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday during what Georgia DNR game wardens described as an illegal hunting outing that involved about five adults. Howard “Benjie” Hartley, 57, also of Glenwood and the current dean of students at Wheeler County High School, was arrested and charged with felony involuntary manslaughter, hunting deer at night, hunting from a motor vehicle, and hunting big game from a public road. Both men were hunting-safety course graduates according to the incident report and the DNR has not yet confirmed whether they were related.

Cooper Hartley graduated from Wheeler County High School in 2021, later trained as a welder, worked at the Oconee River Lodge, and was described in his obituary as an avid hunter and fisherman. The district said it is aware of the dean’s arrest, will not comment on the active case or his employment beyond what personnel rules allow, and is offering counseling support. Georgia DNR’s Critical Incident Reconstruction Team is still investigating.

🐻 North Idaho Grizzly Sighting Gives Recovery Advocates Hope for Expanded Territory. A grizzly sighting earlier this month near Skookum Saddle in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains has been confirmed, marking the third documented appearance in that part of the country this year. Trail-camera photos from a black bear hunter’s bait site showed what Idaho Fish and Game called a healthy adult grizzly, prompting orders for the hunter to pull the bait. Officials have not confirmed the bear’s sex and are trying to collect DNA, believing that it may have come from the small Cabinet-Yaak population to the north, which is made up of roughly 60 bears in northern Idaho and northwest Montana.

Montana conservationist Louisa Willcox called it “a glimmer of hope that these bears can make it,” arguing recovery depends less on raw numbers than on connected habitat, including a path into remote central Idaho. That would still require crossing Interstate 90, a barrier that has long kept Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone bears from mixing. Fish and Game notes grizzlies in the Coeur d’Alenes are not unheard of, and this year’s failed huckleberry crop has pushed both black bears and grizzlies into lower country looking for food. For the time being, authorities are maintaining that there is still no evidence of a breeding population in the Coeur d’Alene area.

💪 This fella has been walking around with an antler lodged in his neck for a couple of weeks now. According to the original poster, he’s still got it stuck in there as of early this week.

He’s definitely wearing it like a badge of honor…

🦌 Everyone is a Dope Fiend: We are all chasing the next high. To feel that rush. Memories of the past are anchored by moments that hit hardest. That beautiful mix of adrenaline and dopamine, endorphins and serotonin, risk and performance, excitement and success.

On paper, Eastern whitetail deer hunting is a hard sell. Sit your ass in a tree, don’t move, stay focused the entire time, you’ll likely be cold, and just hope (with varying degrees of confidence) that a deer gets within range. For archery hunting it’s even less attractive. Range is limited and access to the vitals matters. What the uninitiated don’t appreciate is this type of hunting has the ability to produce a rush that you’ll chase forever. Read the full story.

🐕‍🦺 The Covenant:  It was 4:30 in the morning when the growl, low, throaty, and menacing, woke me up. My head snapped up, and I looked over at Tess, my Chesapeake Bay retriever. She was staring intently into the darkness, alerting me to something I could neither see nor hear from inside the makeshift duck blind we occupied. On this public hunting area, you either get there early or you go home, so I had pulled into theparking area at 3:30 a.m., walked to my spot, set my decoys in the darkness, and promptly fallen asleep while waiting for shooting light.

Tess growled again, this time louder, and presently I heard feet crunching through the cattails toward us, headlamps bobbing in the darkness. Duck hunters, of course. A soft “hush” and a “no” to Tess let her know the hunters were no threat. When legal shooting light rolled around, Tess retrieved all the ducks I shot, ducks that I simply would not have been able to retrieve had I not had her with me. When we got home later that morning she jumped out of the truck, grabbed one of the many tennis balls that litter our yard, and headed straight for my children, looking for a playmate.  Read the full story.

🏙️ New York Was Far Away: The valley was long and narrow, filled with the green of rich grass and the pale gold of frost-touched arctic willow. Along the edges of the valley was a thick border of spruce, but not far up the mountainsides, the woods played out in a scattering of scrubby trees. The hillsides flamed with the scarlet of scrub arctic birch that was now in its autumn glory.

At the head of the valley, perhaps four or five miles away, was a series of high ridges and basins rapped by a conical peak dusted with snow. Below it lay green upland pastures of moss, grass and lichen cut by ragged streaks of gray slide rock.

“What about those mountains at the end of the valley?” Bill asked. “They’re my idea of sheep country.” Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…