Grizzly bear kills woman in Montana after pulling her out of her tent

A search for the bear is on and officials say it will be killed if found

Undated file photo provided by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks shows a sow grizzly bear spotted near Camas, in northwestern Montana. (AP)

A grizzly bear killed a 65-year-old woman after pulling her out from her tent in Montana.

Leah Davis Lokan, a nurse from Chico, was participating in a long-distance bicycling trip and had stopped in western Montana’s town of Ovando on Monday before she was fatally attacked, said Montana wildlife officials.

The bear pulled her out of the tent late on Tuesday night and killed her before fellow campers could use bear spray to force it out of the area, said the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials in the release.

Lokan was mauled to death on the bear’s second trip to their camping site, officials said.

She and two of her fellow cyclists were first awakened by the 400-pound bear around 3am. They removed the food from their tent and secured it before going back to sleep, officials said.

It was around 4:15 am that the sheriff’s office received a 911 call informing them about the attack, said Powell County Sheriff Gavin Roselles.

While the officials are probing the circumstances surrounding the attack, they have also launched a helicopter search to find the bear.

The animal will be killed if found, said Greg Lemon, a spokesperson for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

"At this point, our best chance for catching this bear will be culvert traps set in the area near the chicken coop where the bear killed and ate several chickens," Randy Arnold, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional supervisor in Missoula was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

A Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks helicopter lands in Ovando, Montana, on Tuesday, 6 July 2021, after searching for a bear that killed a camper early that morning (AP)

The DNA samples collected from the attack site would be compared to the bear captured.

Lokan had looked forward to the Montana bike trip for months, said her friend Mary Flowers. “She loved these kind of adventures. A woman in her 60s, and she’s dong this kind of stuff — she had a passion for life that was out of the ordinary.”

Ovando is located approximately 74 miles northwest of Helena and has a population of 71 people, according to the 2000 census. In the north of Ovando lies a vast stretch of woodland and mountains including Glacier National Park extending into Canada. The region is home to over 1,000 grizzly bears.

Such fatal attacks in the region are rare. In fact, there have been only three such attacks recorded in the past 20 years, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The campsite in Ovando has been closed until at least Sunday following the attack, with officials urging people to be cautious, the Powell County Sheriff’s office said.

Additional reporting from wires