‘This is not bear country.’ Grizzly surprises rancher

June 6, 2008

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a bear out here. This is not bear country,” said J.C. Seewald, whose family owns and operates Landslide Farms northwest of Cut Bank. “There’s no way he was more surprised to see me than I was to see him,” said Seewald of the encounter last week.
Blackfeet Fish & Wildlife agent Kevin Vaile, above, inspects the 285 lb. male grizzly, which was shot by J.C. Seewald last week. A very surprised Seewald came upon the bear feeding on this cow, below, on Wednesday evening. He reported the incident to the Blackfeet Fish & Wildlife authorities the next morning. Photo by Brian Kavanagh

Seewald shot the grizzly, first with a .22 and then later with a .338, after he came upon him unexpectedly around sunset on Wednesday, May 28, about a mile from his home. Seewald was checking cows when he came up and over a hill and nearly ran into the bear, which was feeding on a dead cow.

Seewald had spotted a dead cow the night before in another pasture and had seen coyotes eating on it. He recalled hearing two calves bawling at the time but didn’t think much of it.

The following night, after checking “lick tubs” and hauling mineral to another pasture, he started for home. And that’s when he got the surprise of his life.

“I was booking for home on my four-wheeler after checking cows and when I got over the hill I braked hard, skidding within about 10 yards of a grizzly bear. The whole thing took about seven or eight seconds, I suppose. The grizzly stood up on his hind legs and barked two or three times,” he recounted. “I braked hard and locked up the wheels on the four-wheeler, which sent my dog flying off the back.”

Seewald continued, “I reached for my .22 as I saw the bear step over the cow toward me. I hit him with at least two or three shots before he backed down and then took off to the north. Then I turned south and took off for the house.”

Seewald and his wife, Hapi, have three young sons and usually at least one, if not all three, are with him when he’s out doing chores. “They stayed with Hapi to plant trees around the house,” said J.C. The house where his family was working outside was “about a mile as the crow flies” from the area he shot the bear.

“I went running into the house, yelled to Hapi what happened and told her to keep the boys inside. I grabbed my .338 and when I went back to where the cow was, the bear was there feeding on it again,” said Seewald. This time he fired three shots at the bear’s shoulder.

He explained, “99.9 percent of the time I have at least one of my sons with me and I would have that night except I had my four-wheeler loaded with mineral.”

“We called the Blackfeet Fish & Game folks the next morning and they came out to investigate,” said Seewald. “They did a good job and were very thorough and fair in their investigation.”

“J.C. called first thing in the morning, so we went out to start what is standard procedure because of the grizzly’s threatened status under the Endangered Species Act,” said Dan Carney, bear biologist at Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife.

Carney was accompanied by Blackfeet Fish and Wildlife agents Kevin Vaile, Fred Crossguns and assistant Joey Crossguns Thursday, May 29, in investigating the shooting death of the 285 lb. male grizzly bear.

“It was way out east, north of Mission Lake, and about five or six miles from the Canadian border,” Carney continued. “It was a male with a radio collar and transmitter, that was caught by Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks east of Dupuyer last fall. There was a man who was mobbed by grizzlies there last year, and they caught this one, but it wasn’t the same bear.”

DNA tests showed the bear they’d caught didn’t match samples of the one that attacked the man. “So it was basically a non-target capture,” Carney said. “It was relocated around Ear Mountain and the next thing you know it popped up here.”

Although the bruin was radio-collared, Carney noted, bears are only tracked by air once per month by the state agency, and the Blackfeet agency doesn’t ordinarily look for grizzlies that far east.

Nonetheless, bears frequently make it out onto the prairie, following creeks and rivers. “There are more and more reports of bears on the creek bottoms,” Carney said. “They follow way out east to Alkali Lake on the Two Medicine and east on Cut Bank Creek. This was the first time on the Milk River, but it wasn’t a huge surprise to me.”

Carney explained the investigation now underway is meant to determine whether the shooting was in self-defense. He added the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife is conducting their own investigation as well.

Seewald said he met with officials from the U.S. Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks on Friday.

No charges by either agency had been filed against Seewald as of press time.

“It all happened so fast,” said Seewald of last week’s incident.

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Wildlife