GR man killed in Montana bear attack

COOKE CITY, Mont. (WOOD) - Four bears believed to have rampaged through a campground near Yellowstone National Park, killing a Grand Rapids man and injuring a woman and another man early Wednesday morning were captured Friday.

Tom Palmer of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Service told 24 Hour News 8 in a phone conversation Friday, the family of bears has been moved to Bozeman while their "disposition" is being considered.

Officials are awaiting the outcome of DNA tests conducted on the three yearling bears and the mother bear involved in the fatal attack. Palmer said a decision as to their fate will be made soon.

The man who died has been identified as 48-year-old Kevin Kammer. He leaves behind his wife and four children. The coroner has called the incident a "fatal bear encounter."

24 Hour News 8 talked to Kammer's brother-in-law Thursday morning. Jim Howard said Kammer was an avid fisherman and was in Montana by himself when the attack happened at the Soda Butte Campground, near Cooke City.

Kammer and the other two victims were in separate campsites. Authorities were responding to a report of a bear attack involving the other two victims when they came upon Kammer's body. Tom Palmer of  Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) told 24 Hour News 8 Kammer was found about 25 feet from his tent after being dragged by the bear.

Deb Freele of London, Ontario, suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. She then instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone, she said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. The male survivor, thought to be a teenager, suffered puncture wounds on his calf.

"This is compeltely random," says Palmer. "Everyone in the campground had done everything as they're supposed to."

There was no food in the victims' tents. The bear and her three cubs came back to the Kammer's tent Wednesday night, Palmer said.

The AP reports Montana wildlife officials captured a female grizzly later that evening in a culvert trap and two of her three cubs overnight Thursday. FWP Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard said Thursday that officials are confident they captured the offending bear.

Sheppard describes the attacks as highly unusual and predatory, as opposed to an attack in which a sow might be protecting her cubs from a perceived threat. Officials have said the sow in this incident will be killed. State and federal wildlife officials will determine the fate of the cubs. Sheppard says they are unlikely to be returned to the wild.

Howard said Kammer "used to give fly fishing lessons. It was kind of a dream of his to be able to go fly fishing in Montana because it's beautiful fly fishing country. I know he was very excited to go on this trip."

Kammer was "devoted to his family and children. That's what he did. That was his life...were his children."

Palmer told 24 Hour News 8 he sends his condolences to Kammer's family. "This fellow was doing everything right and it's a heartbreaking and tragic accident."

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Below is another full report from the Associated Press, released Thursday evening.

One of the survivors of a deadly grizzly bear attack said Thursday she realized her only hope was to play dead after feeling the bear's jaw clamp onto her arm in the middle of the night.

Wildlife officials were testing the DNA of a bear captured at the site of the early Wednesday mauling to confirm it was the animal that also killed a Michigan man and hurt another camper near Yellowstone National Park, but they said they were confident they had caught the right animals.

"Something woke me up, and a split second later, I felt teeth grinding into my arm," Deb Freele of London, Ontario, said from a Wyoming hospital. "I realized, at that split second, I was being attacked by a bear, but I couldn't see it.

"It was behind me and I screamed. I couldn't help it — it's kind of like somebody else was screaming," she told The Associated Press. "And then it bit me harder, and more. It got very aggressive and started to shake me."

She kept screaming but then realized that if she didn't do something, she was going to die.

"I decided at that point, the only other thing I knew to do was to play dead, and I just went totally limp, got very quiet, didn't make a sound. And a few seconds later, the bear dropped me and walked away," she said.

The bear believed to be responsible for the rampage at the Soda Butte Campground was lured into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe and pieces of the dead man's tent. Wildlife officials left the 300- to 400-pound sow in place overnight to attract her young, and by Thursday morning two of her year-old offspring were in adjacent traps.

The third could be heard nearby through much of the day, calling out to its mother and eliciting heavy groans from the sow, which periodically rattled its steel cage.

The cub returned at about 8 p.m. Thursday and nosed around the trap for about a half hour. At one point, it climbed halfway into the trap and then backed out