Bear kills man, injures 2 near Yellowstone Park

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department spokesman Ron Aasheim said it was believed one bear was involved and at least two tents were left in tatters in the attack, which occurred at the height of the tourist season.

“I thought I would be dinner,” said Deb Freele, 58, of London, Ontario, who recalled awakening from a deep sleep in her tent to find a bear chewing on her arm.

“Within hundredths of seconds, I felt the teeth in my arm, heard bones breaking. I screamed and that seemed to aggravate him. He sunk his teeth into me again,” she recounted in a telephone interview from her hospital room in Cody, Wyoming.

“So I decided to play dead and mean it,” she said, adding that when she did, the bear, which she believed was a grizzly, let go and lumbered away.

Investigators were still trying to determine if the animal was a black bear or a grizzly, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department spokesman Ron Aasheim said.

He said the attacks appeared to be unprovoked, and that the presence of food, which often attracts bears and other wildlife into campgrounds, did not appear to be a factor. Such “random predatory” bear attacks on humans are rare, he said.

Wildlife officials launched an all-out search for the bear, or bears, including the use of airplanes and helicopters on the lookout for radio-collared animals or others in the vicinity. Bear traps also were being set in the campground.

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