LIBBY, Mont., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A Nevada man on a hunting trip in Montana was killed by a young grizzly bear, police said Saturday.
The victim was identified as Steve Stevenson, 39, of Winnemucca, The Idaho Statesman reported. The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office in Libby, Mont., said Stevenson and three other hunters from Winnemucca were in the Buckhorn Mountains on the Idaho-Montana border when the attack occurred Friday.
Stevenson and Ty Bell, 20, were tracking what they thought was a black bear Friday morning, investigators said. Bell shot and killed the bear, which proved to be a young male grizzly, after the fatal mauling.
Bell reported the attack by cellphone to the Boundary County Sheriff's Office in Idaho, which then notified Montana authorities. Stevenson's body was to be autopsied by a coroner in Libby and while a lab in Bozeman, Mont., will do a necropsy on the bear carcass.
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is also involved in the investigation.
