The following is portion of an article from the Great Falls Tribune:
By Michael Babcock
A Fairfield-area rancher shot and killed a grizzly bear early Tuesday after he found it and another grizzly killing sheep in a pen about 150 feet from his house.
Rick Christy said he was awakened by the commotion at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. It was light enough outside for him to clearly see two bears in his sheep pen.
Christy killed one of the bears with a single shot from a .308-caliber rifle. The other bear fled, but not immediately.
“I was motivated,” Christy said of the single shot. “The best shots are the ones you don’t think about. At times, the bears were within 10 feet of me.”
Christy said the bears were chasing sheep around a concrete manure bin in the middle of the sheep pen, which is long and narrow.
“The sheep and bears were all running around that, and I didn’t know how many bears there were,” Christy said. “I shot when they jumped on a sheep right in front of me.
“The bears were not bothered by my presence. Even after I shot the one, the other one just slowly took off,” he said. “They both were about the same size.”
Christy said the bears killed or fatally wounded nine sheep, including ewes and a lamb. He said two sheep were sewn up by a veterinarian, but the others were either dead or too far gone to save.
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Posted by Haylie Shipp
