The Fatal Bear Attack Of Mary Mahoney

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Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Many Glaciers Campground in Glacier National Park, Montana. The mountains in this area are part of the Rocky Mountains and are generally around 8,000 feet high with Mount Cleveland stretching up to 10,466 in elevation. The granite peaks retreat to valleys filled with timber or pine, fir, and spruce trees mixed with stands of aspen, willow, and berry bushes. Common animals here include white-tailed deer, elk, and moose. Predators in this area include black bears, cougars, wolves, and grizzly bears.
In the Many Glaciers area of the park, there had been a series of grizzly bear run-ins that were alarming. The plant life around the campground makes a favorable lowland forage site for sow bears raising cubs. The nutritious plants and abundant insects provide key nutrients for growing and adult bears. Boar grizzlies will often battle to include these kinds of areas in their territory to increase concentrations of sows for breeding purposes.
Given the quality of bear food sources in this area, bear populations have been ticking up by about 30 bears each year. With governmental protections preventing hunting, the population has increased significantly in younger bears which may be learning how to fit into the bear and human worlds.
This learning curve involves younger bears raiding campsites and breaking into coolers, and garbage cans. This habituation of human sources of food creates a dangerous and tenuous situation that presents a danger to humans and bears alike.
In the Many Glaciers area, two young grizzlies had been reported exhibiting aggressive behavior. One of the young bears had a particularly aggressive attitude toward the presence of people.
On July 7th, 1976, William Schweighofer was sleeping in his tent at the lower campsite at Logging Lake. William was awakened in the middle of the night by the overwhelming pressure of something pressing against him. As he reached his hands out of his sleeping bag, he could feel the round large shape of a grizzly bear's rump pressing him down through his tent.
William yelled and pushed against the bear's rump in an alarmed effort to scare it away. Instead of fleeing the grizzly turned its jaws toward the man's voice and clamped its jaws on his arm. It used its bulk to hold him in place until it got a firm grip on his shoulder and repeatedly bit into his arm and shoulder as it did it.
Once it got ahold of him, the bear began to drag William several yards, while he was still in his sleeping bag and tent. After dragging William many yards, the bear lost interest and meandered off leaving the man in pain and suffering from lacerations and puncture wounds to his arms and shoulder.
Only a few weeks later, on August 15th, 1976, 17-year-old Pam Sue Wise and her friend Pam Benda were having fun while hiking along the Ptarmigan Falls Trail which led to Iceberg Lake. As they hiked along they glanced behind them and noticed a huge grizzly bear following them. The women immediately dropped the backpacks from their shoulders and pulled themselves up into a nearby tree.
The women were hoping the grizzly may have been interested in the contents of their backpacks but watched as the bear approached the tree and stepped over their backpacks. It stood on its hind legs and scratched at the bark of the tree, trying to find a grip to climb up after them. It growled as it stared at them and raked its claws over the tree.
After a few futile attempts at climbing the tree, the grizzly turned and wandered off a short distance. Just when the ladies thought they were safe, the grizzly returned to the base of their tree. It clawed the tree and tried to pull itself up to get at the women one more time while staring at them and growling.
Having been frustrated in its attempt to climb the tree the grizzly wandered off for good this time. Eventually, the women were able to escape and reported the incident to Rangers.
A few weeks later, on September 9th, 1976, Roscoe Black and Theresa Waden were enjoying a hike to Stoney Lake. While near the lake two grizzly bears stormed out of the bushes along the trail. The bear bit a big hole into Roscoe’s calf and lacerated Theresa’s arm, shoulder, and back before departing.
On September 19th, 1976, Karen Kuntz was relaxing while reading a book near the outlet of Fish Gap Lake. As she read a rustle in the nearby bushes drew her attention away from her book. Two huge grizzly bears stepped out of the bushes a mere five yards from Karen to her horror.