June 9, 1998 The Missoulian: Rangers kill second grizzly! by Michael Jamison

WEST GLACIER - A second grizzly bear, suspected of pursuing, killing and consuming a hiker, was killed Sunday in the southeastern corner of Glacier National Park.

The 2 year-old female was euthanized after DNA test reports indicated that human remains were in the bears' scat, officials said.

With the sow and young female now dead, rangers continue ground and aerial searches for the youngster's brother, a subadult male.

The family group's genetic relationship was determined by DNA testing, park officials said. The 13-year-old mother was shot by a park ranger last Thursday.

The female cub was captured in a trap last week near the Two Medicine Ranger Station in the park's southeastern corner. Officials had hoped she would lure her male sibling to the area so he could be captured. She was kept in a culvert trap four days, but the sibling, last seen in late May, never showed up.

Physical evidence - including the DNA testing - indicated that the family of grizzlies scavenged the body of 26-year-old hiker Craig Dahl. Dahl, of Winter Park, CO, was last seen Sunday, May 17, where he told friends and co-workers he was hiking alone into Glacier's southeastern corner.

His body was discovered three days later, surrounded by bear prints, hair and scat.

The location is in the same area where Matthew Truszkowski disappeared last July. Truszkowslti also was hiking alone when he disappeared and no trace of him has been found.

While searching for Truszkowski, officials said, rangers spotted the grizzly family last summer and at least one member of the party was bluff charged by the sow.

According to park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt, some searchers have shown interest in returning to the area once the snowpack recedes, hoping to eliminate the possibility that Truszkowski's fate mirrored that of Dahl's.

Even before last summer, Vanderbilt said, officials had known about this particular family of bears. The sow had made a public appearance just outside the park boundary Vanderbilt said, where she and one cub were spotted at a popular campground licking barbecue grills and sniffing garbage cans.

Rangers captured the bears, relocating them to the Two Medicine Valley in the southeastern corner of the park.

Aside from harassing searchers during last summer's hunt for Truszkowski, Vanderbilt said, the bears were not known to have caused any more trouble until the incident involving Dahl.

After the discovery of Dahl's body on May 20, rangers have turned sleuths in their attempt to reconstruct the events leading to his death. Test results confirm that human DNA was found in six of 11 bear scat samples. All samples, officials said, also contained the adult bear's genotype.

Hair samples previously taken from the young male and female were matched to hair samples collected at the site where Dahl's body was found.

If investigators are correct and Dahl was killed by a grizzly, this would be the 10th known death by bears in park history.

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