Page 28 - Wyoming's Grizzly Harvest - The Story the State Wants to Bury with the Bears

Wyoming’s Grizzly Harvest grizzly bear,” which contradicted his earlier claim that he and Baggs had spent the prior “ten minutes” watching the bear and speculating upon its “specie.” Ellsbury killed the bear with a Remington 700 .30-06. “Ellsbury said he had just one opening before the bear would be gone,” Browning stated in his deposition. Clearly, this Wyoming Game and Fish “bear management specialist” had been intent on killing a bear from the moment he saw the “nice black bear” on Sweetwater Creek that morning. After the bullet ripped into the bear “low in the chest,” Ellsbury and Baggs watched as it lunged toward the river and then lumbered “back up the river about twenty yards” where it collapsed. Fifteen minutes later Ellsbury stood over his trophy – a grizzly, not a black bear. Browning, Wyoming Game and Fish Regional Wildlife Supervisor, Alan Osterland, and FWS Special Agent Rippeto examined Ellsbury’s kill and all observed the classic physical characteristics of a grizzly bear. The investigators then recorded “the site of the kill” and, concluded Browning, “I measured the horizontal distance from where Ellsbury fired the shot to the road and found the distance to be twenty- three feet.” It is not uncommon to see “hunters” shooting from the side of the road on the North Fork, but a Wyoming 28