Arrived back home in Atlantic Beach at about 8:00 PM, on Tuesday, March 10, and the first E-Mail I opened was from my good friend John Askins. Attached to the message were the above photos, and this information on the behemoth bear:
The downloaded pictures are of a man who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear (killed in self defense).
He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his 7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.
The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.
Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild.
Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours including a missing hiker.
The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol were the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found.
Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body), it only wounded the bear and probably angered it immensely.
The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.
Think about this:
If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's navel when he stood upright. The bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.
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God bless all those mushers out on the trail, and keep them safe.
I'm going to try to post an update on the race every night until the last musher reaches Nome, in case anyone is interested.
