400-Pound Grizzly Bear Pulls Chico Woman From Tent, Kills Her, At Montana Campsite
HELENA Mont. (CBS SF/AP) — A nurse from Chico died on a long-distance bicycling trip in Montana, after a 400-pound grizzly bear pulled her from her tent in the middle of the night and killed her.
Leah Davis Lokan was spending the night in the western town of Ovando when she was killed, early Tuesday.
Witnesses told officials, the bear had visited the campsite earlier, around 3 a.m., that night, prompting Lokan and her fellow campers to get rid of the food inside their tents so as not to attract the animal.
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Surveillance video showed the bear in the small town on that same night, where it reportedly entered a chicken coop and ate several birds.
About 4:15 a.m., the sheriff's office received a 911 call after two people in a tent near the Lokan's were awakened by sounds of the attack, Powell County Sheriff Gavin Roselles said. They discharged their bear spray, and the bear ran away.
The grizzly is still on the loose. Officials searched by helicopter on Wednesday but couldn't find it. They said the bear will be killed, when it is caught.
"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," said Randy Arnold, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional supervisor in Missoula.
Lokan, a registered nurse who had worked at a hospital in Chico, had looked forward to the Montana bike trip for months, said Mary Flowers, a friend of the victim's from Chico. Lokan had taken previous long-distance bike trips and on this one was accompanied by her sister and a friend, Flowers said.
"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," Flowers said.
© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
