A bear attacked a hiker in a Montana national park weeks after another attack that saw a Florida man killed, according to a report.
The attack unfolded on May 21 near Lake Josephine on the east side of Glacier National Park. Devin Dufrene, 21, told SFGate that he was walking along the lake’s north shore with his sister and three college students when they “heard a scream.”
“Shortly after, a person from the group in front of us was running back screaming, ‘bear attack,’” Dufrene said. He said he and his sister tried to calm the man down.
“He continued running and screaming,” Dufrene continued, adding that he was able to connect to a satellite device and report the incident to emergency services at around 1.30 p.m. Then, he turned around and headed back towards the trailhead.
However, that was when the group noticed a bear walking up the trail towards them.
“Knowing there was an attack up trail and now a bear approaching from the opposite direction, we decided to ascend up the cliff side and wait for the bear to pass,” Dufrene explained.
After getting back on the trail, Dufrene says that he ran into a group of rangers heading towards the attack site at around 1.50 p.m. He said that the rangers instructed them to return to the trailhead and to make as much noise as possible.
Dufrene told SFGate that he noticed new signs announcing that all trails past the Many Glacier Hotel were closed. He also saw rangers heading up the trail, carrying an empty stretcher.
A park alert revealed that a section of the North Shore Trail was closed on May 21.
The incident is the second attack in Glacier National Park this month, with the park confirming in a press release on May 9 that a hiker named Anthony Pollio, from Davie, Florida, had been found dead following a “bear encounter.”
Pollio had shared plans to hike the Mount Brown Trail on May 3, with park officials being notified about his disappearance a day later.
Eventually, search and rescue teams uncovering some of Pollio’s personal items around 2.5 miles from the trailhead.
The hiker’s body was discovered at around 12 pm on May 6, around 50 feet off the trail in a densely wooded area. Park officials noted that he had injuries “consistent with a bear encounter.”
On Monday, a pair of hikers uploaded a video of their own encounter with two young grizzly bears in the Glacier National Park to Instagram. The video, which was shared by @m_vanzeeland, showed two bears sprinting past.
One of the hikers admitted that they deployed a “little bit” of bear spray during the encounter. After running into a bear again, one of the hikers shouted, “Hey, back up!”
Moments later, the bear wandered away.
The Independent has contacted the Glacier National Park for comment.
