The attack happened on Oct. 26 south of Cody, Wy. (Shutterstock image)
October 31, 2017
By Game & Fish Online Staff
The grizzly bear attack came while the hunters were field-dressing an elk.
A Wyoming hunter and her guide were injured in a grizzly bear attack while they were field-dressing an elk on public land south of Cody. The injuries were not life-threatening, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department reported.
The attack occurred the evening of Oct. 26 after the pair had been elk hunting in the Shoshone National Forest, in the Boulder Basin area, the agency said in a news release .
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The agency said the pair were field-dressing and quartering the elk when the grizzly attacked without warning, then left with one of the elk quarters.
Guide John Sheets, who suffered multiple injuries including a broken leg, told the Cody Enterprise the bear first attacked the hunter. She also was reportedly in stable condition. Sheets said he grabbed and stabbed the bear with his hunting knife to try to get the animal off the woman. He told the newspaper he remembers seeing the bear drag the hunter away.
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"He chewed on her, came back up, and chewed up the back of my head, my ear," Sheets told the Enterprise.
Wyoming Game and Fish said the hunters were able to get back to camp and call 911.
No bears were found in the immediate area of the attack afterward, but investigators saw other grizzlies between the Boulder Basin trailhead and the attack site.
"First of all, we wish these individuals a speedy and full recovery and are appreciative of their willingness to provide detailed information to the investigators," Cody Regional Wildlife Supervisor Dan Smith said in a news release. "This incident happened extremely quickly; it appears this is a situation of a grizzly bear aggressively taking an elk carcass for food. Due to the remoteness of the area and the inability to identify the offending bear, no management action will be taken at this time."
