While camping close to Yellowstone National Park, a senior citizen from New York was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear and taken to the hospital.
Unknown 68-year-old Buffalo resident was taken by surprise by the animal and thus unable to utilize the bear spray he was carrying.
Fortunately, he was able to activate his personal location beacon, which dispatched rescuers to the wilderness area in rural Wyoming where he was abandoned.
The identity of the individual and his current health status have remained a secret, according to sheriffs and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
He was evacuated out of the Francs Peak region by a US Air Force Rescue Coordination team and is currently receiving medical care at a hospital in Billings, Montana.
The Washakie Wilderness’s Francs Peak summit, at 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), is regarded as a grizzly habitat.
There are more than 700 grizzly bears living in the Yellowstone area, which includes parts of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
Since 2010, grizzlies in that region have killed at least eight people.
Charles “Carl” Mock, a backcountry guide, was one of them. He was severely mauled by a 400-pound male grizzly bear while alone fishing on the Madison River in Montana.
And in March, a bear assault in the Six Mile Creek region of Paradise Valley, south Montana, claimed the life of 40-year-old father-of-four Craig Clouatre.
Jamie, his wife, and their four children were left behind by Clouatre.
Within a few days, a crowdfunders for his family had amassed more than $55,000.
Outside of Alaska, grizzlies are protected by federal law.
Bears frequently live in dense forests at higher elevations, although harmful contacts with people are comparatively uncommon.
As the grizzly population rises and more humans settle in rural regions close to bear habitats, attacks have apparently increased in recent decades.
In the Yellowstone area, elected authorities are trying to relax restrictions and permit grizzly hunting.
The revelation was also in response to allegations that a 71-year-old Pennsylvania woman was attacked in Yellowstone when she and her daughter unintentionally approached a bison.
According to the National Park Service, the woman’s injuries were not life-threatening, and she was taken to a hospital in Cody, Wyoming.
After Yellowstone was devastated by unprecedented flooding that permanently rerouted rivers, swept away roads and bridges, and drowned adjacent communities in torrents of streaming water, visitors were just recently allowed to return.
When the floodwaters finally subsided, park officials opted to reopen it after only two weeks because they had earlier anticipated it would be closed for months while they repaired the damage.
Park officials cautioned visitors to be extra watchful for wild creatures that may have been displaced by the waters both during the storm and in the days that followed.