Bear badly mauls hunter in Montana

The 47-year-old hunter, whose identity has not been publicly released, was attacked by the bear at about 11 a.m. local time on Sunday in the mountains of Beaverhead National Forest near Dillon, about 100 miles southeast of Missoula, officials said. The man's 68-year-old father, who was a short distance away at the time, heard a rifle shot and hurried to the location to find his son severely injured, but the bear had by then vanished, said Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman for the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department. The injured hunter, who is from Stevensville, Montana, was initially taken to a hospital in Dillon, then was flown by helicopter to Seattle in Washington state for further treatment, Jones said. Jones had no information on the man's medical condition except to say that he was too badly hurt to have been questioned by authorities about the circumstances of the attack. It was not immediately clear whether the hunter was mauled by a black bear or grizzly bear, she said...more