Authorities in Montana said that a 40-year old man who was hiking in Montana earlier this week went missing and was later found dead in an apparent encounter with a bear.
Craig Clouatre, a Livingston resident, was believed to have seen the bear north Yellowstone National Park. However no details have been given.
Clouatre and a friend went hiking on Wednesday to hunt for antlers.
The sheriff stated that search teams were immediately sent to the ground and in helicopters to locate him after he disappeared on that night.
The Absaroka Mountains area, Six Mile Creek, was the focus of the search. It is located approximately 30 miles (48 kms) south from Livingston, Montana.
According to Park County Sheriff Brad Bichler, the Livingston Enterprise heard that the men “split up later in the afternoon” and that “when the other person returned to his vehicle and his friend was not there, he called us.” Then we started searching.
Bichler posted on Facebook that authorities were working hard Friday to return the victim’s body to his family.
Clouatre’s father stated that Craig was “a joy to have all the way around”
He said, “He was a great man, a hardworking, good family man”,
Anne Tanner, a friend to the victim, said Clouatre visited Yellowstone mountains and other areas around the park often when he was not home with his wife and four children.
As the grizzly population increases and more people move into rural areas close to bear habitat, fatal attacks on humans have increased in recent years.
At least eight people have been killed by grizzlies in Yellowstone since 2010.
Charles “Carl”, a backcountry guide, was one of them. He was attacked by a male grizzly that weighed 400 pounds (181 kilograms) while he was fishing alone at a favorite spot on Montana’s Madison River.
Although Grizzlies are not protected by federal law in Alaska, elected officials from the Yellowstone region are trying to lift those protections and allow grizzly-hunting.
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