FWP commissioner shoots at charging grizzly

By CHRIS PETERSON / Hungry Horse News

Vic Workman might just be living a charmed life. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commissioner from Whitefish narrowly avoided being attacked by a grizzly on Sunday while elk hunting with a friend up Lupfer Meadows in the Lazy Creek drainage north of Whitefish Lake.

The two had just begun to go their separate ways when the bear charged Workman from about 30 feet away.

"He was coming at me full bore," Workman said.

Workman yelled at the bear, "Whoa bear! Who bear! Whoa!"

He said he didn't want to shoot, but when the bear was about 10 feet away, he fired his gun. The bear kept running, however, passing him from about five feet away.

The two men didn't see the bear again.

"It happened pretty quick," Workman said.

Workman said he knows that FWP recommends that hunters carry bear spray when in he woods, but he says in this instance he could have never gotten in out and sprayed it in time. The attack was just too quick.

"I'd be dead or in intensive care right now," he said if he had bear spray and tried to use it.

The bear had buried a big white-tailed deer carcass when Workman must have gotten too close. Bears are very territorial around kills.

Workman called grizzly bear management specialists with FWP to check out his story. They looked for the bear Sunday and on Monday, he went back with FWP Warden Captain Lee Anderson, Warden Chris Crane and Grizzly Bear Management Specialist Tim Manley. Manley brought along a bear dog to aid in the search for the bear. But they were unable to track it.

Anderson said no dead bear was found, and no definite evidence was present that indicated the grizzly had been hit by the shot. There was no blood or hair that could be found in the immediate area where the shot had been fired. A thorough search of the area turned up no sign of the bear.

However, the white-tailed buck had been dug up and dragged about 40 yards from the original location across Lazy Creek by what appears to have been a bear. DNA samples were collected from bear scat at the original location and the location across the creek. This analysis should determine if the scat was from the same bear or if another bear had visited the site after the incident. Blood samples along the drag trail were also collected; these samples will be analyzed to determine if they originated from the deer or the grizzly.

Workman claimed there were too many grizzly bears and FWP commissioners should put pressure on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to have grizzlies in Northwest Montana de-listed from the Endangered Species List.

Workman said he likes bears, but they need to be managed. He said if bears were hunted, they would have a greater fear of humans.

"It's a human safety issue," he said.

But de-listing the grizzly here is years off, Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.

While the objective is to recover grizzly bears, population trend studies, habitat standards and mapping have to be completed, and it all has to be coordinated with several government agencies, like the National Park Service and the Forest Service.

That process is as long as 10 years out. Servheen blamed funding for part of the problem. Grizzlies were recently de-listed in the Yellowstone ecosystem, but it had funding to complete the necessary analysis under the law.

Workman and his wife, Puck, are no strangers to the outdoors. They ride 400 to 500 miles in the woods each summer, and he is also an avid hunter.

He shot the grizzly that hangs in the Glacier Park International Airport. That bear was shot in Alaska and weighed about 1,200 pounds. He estimated the bear he shot at Sunday was about 800 pounds.

This isn't the first time Workman has had a brush with death.

In February 2006, he was in a helicopter doing winter elk surveys when it ran into foul weather and had to make an emergency landing near Spotted Bear.

Workman then had to slog through snow with the pilot and FWP biologist Eric Wenum to get to safety of the Spotted Bear Lodge in a snowstorm. Luckily, Workman had a satellite phone with him.

And, just prior to the flight, he decided to change from a light pair of shoes into his boots.