Bear, suspected of killing Chico woman, shot dead

Officials located the grizzly at a chicken coop not far from the woman’s campsite and set up a trap.

The grizzly bear suspected of killing a Chico woman camping in Montana was shot dead by wildlife officials.

Montana wildlife officials believed the bear was the same animal that dragged 65yearold Leah Lokan from her tent and killed her early Tuesday morning as she camped near the small town of Ovando.

Officials located the grizzly at a chicken coop not far from the woman’s campsite and set up a trap.

Just after midnight Friday, when the bear returned to the coop, wildlife officials shot it dead, said Greg Lemon, spokesperson for Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The agency is still waiting on DNA samples and will get confirmation that it was in fact the same bear in the next few days, Lemon said. But based on the size, color, and nature of the “chicken coop” fixation, officials believe it is the same bear.

Lemon said that the decision to kill the bear was made as a matter of public safety — and the fact that the bear’s behavior was by all standards abnormal: Unless grizzly bears feel threatened, they will usually run away from humans, Lemon said.

“When a bear comes into a community and demonstrates a lack of fear of humans in occupied areas, and has an encounter like the bear did ... at that point we decided the best approach was to euthanize it.”

Officials say it’s hard to say why the bear chose to attack Lokan — but it could have been that somewhere along the line, the bear associated humans with a food source. But such a scenario is still very rare, Lemon said.