Grizzly is caught after fatal mauling

COOKE CITY, Mont. — Wildlife officials on Thursday were testing the DNA of a captured grizzly bear to confirm if it was the animal that killed a Michigan man and injured two other campers in a rampage near Yellowstone National Park.

The sow, estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe partially covered by pieces of the dead man's tent. She was left in place overnight Wednesday to attract her young, and by Thursday morning two of her year-old offspring were inside 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. Wildlife officials were setting traps and exploring other ways of capturing the third cub, which they said could not be allowed to stay in the wild.

Montana wildlife officials identified the man killed in the early Wednesday mauling as Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich. The bear pulled Kammer out his tent at the Soda Butte Campground and dragged him 25 feet to where his body was found, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said.

Messages left Thursday for Kammer's mother-in-law and brother-in-law in Michigan were not immediately returned.

The other victims, Deb Freele of London, Ontario, and an unidentified male, were hospitalized in Cody, Wyo. The male was treated and released, and Freele was scheduled to have surgery Friday for bite wounds and a broken bone in her arm, said West Park Hospital spokesman Joel Hunt.

News of the maulings set residents and tourists on edge in Cooke City, a Yellowstone gateway community tucked into the picturesque Absaroka Mountains. Many were carrying bear spray, a pepper-based deterrent more commonly seen in Yellowstone's backcountry than on the city's streets.

Pennsylvania tourist Sheila McBride said she bought a can of the spray Thursday morning after hearing news of the attacks. She and her husband had no plans to hike or camp but were driving through the park in a convertible and wanted to be prepared in case they were delayed in a remote area by any road construction.

"We've got it in the back where we can grab it real easy," McBride said, pointing to her BMW. "If we're stuck in the convertible and a bear is coming over the mountain, we want to be ready."

Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard said he was confident the killer bear was the one they had captured because it came back to the site of the rampage, which started around 2 a.m. Wednesday.