A true Grizzly bear story.

I grew up with Leanne Haynes and went to school with her in Dupuyer, so I was surprised when I did a google search for grizzlies at Dupuyer and found her name in this story.

We were visiting with a rancher near Choteau, MT, yesterday. He told us another story about a grizzly bear sow and her three cubs.

He had some Hutterite boys who worked for him. These boys wanted to see a grizzly bear. He told them one day, he'd seen a sow and her three cubs down by the county road. The boys jumped into the back of the pickup with their cameras and they headed out to see the bear.

This sow grizzly was walking along parallel to the road and there was a fence in between the truck and the road. The bear suddenly charged the pickup. The rancher poured the coal to the truck and spun out in the road as he drove off. One of the boys was at the back tailgate, snapping pictures of the grizzlies gaping mouth, the other boy was trying to break the back window of the truck to get in.

The rancher was a little worried, wondering if he'd get them out of harm's way in time. When the sow turned back to her cubs, she gathered her babies up and headed for the hills. One little cub stopped in mid flight to get another look at the people and the truck. He stood up with his front paws in the air and his head high.

The mom bear realized he was missing, and she spun around, ran back to him, cuffed him right and left and took off for the hills again. The chastized cub kept up with the rest of the family and they disappeared from sight.

Donna