Bears in deadly attack being taken to Bozeman

COOKE CITY, Mont. (AP) — Four grizzly bears believed involved in the fatal mauling of a Michigan man at a campground near Yellowstone National Park are being trucked to a state wildlife lab in Bozeman.

A sow and two of her three cubs had been trapped by Thursday while the final year-old cub was found in a culvert trap early Friday.

Montana wildlife officials are awaiting DNA tests to confirm their suspicions that the bears were responsible for the attack.

The bears left the Soda Butte campground in a three-truck convoy Friday morning.

Officials say they will decide the bears' fate only after seeing the results of DNA tests that are expected Friday.

Two other people were injured in the attack. One has been released from a hospital. The other is scheduled to undergo surgery Friday.

Another grizzly moved to Cabinet Mountains

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — Federal and state wildlife officials have moved a second grizzly bear from the Whitefish Mountain Range to help bolster the population of grizzly bears living in the Cabinet Mountains.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Wayne Kasworm of Libby says the four-year-old, 230-pound female bear was captured last Saturday about 25 miles north of Whitefish, fitted with a GPS collar and relocated in the south end of the Cabinet Mountain Range the next day.

On July 18, a male bear was captured in the Coal Creek drainage on the north end of the Whitefish Range and moved to the West Cabinet Mountains.

Since the program began in 2005, seven bears have been moved from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem to the Cabinet Mountains. Five are believed to still be alive.

Author, survivor of 2 griz attacks dies

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — A Bozeman man who recently published a book about surviving two attacks by grizzly bears has died of natural causes. Jim Cole was 60.

Gallatin County Coroner Mike Chesnut said Cole died July 22.

Cole had just published his third book, "Blindsided: Surviving a Grizzly Attack and Still Loving the Great Bear."

The book tells of how he accidentally stepped on a female grizzly bear while hiking off trail in Yellowstone National Park in May 2007. The bear attack cost him his left eye and left him badly scarred, but Cole was quick to say it was not the bear's fault because he startled her.

Three years earlier, Cole had been cited in Yellowstone for getting too close to a sow grizzly with two cubs to take a photograph. The park regulation was clarified after he was acquitted in a non-jury trial.

MT, ID finalists to land transport planes

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — The Air Force has named the Air National Guard in both Montana and Idaho as finalists to land a new rugged, medium-sized transport plane.

MANG in Great Falls and the Idaho Air National Guard in Boise were selected as candidate bases to operate the C-27J Spartan.

The Air Force said the aircraft, which has a twin turboprop engine, is designed to "give U.S. troops a unique, short takeoff and landing capacity." The aircraft will provide military troops access to airstrips that other fixed-wings planes couldn't use.

Air Force spokesman Gary Strasberg says a decision is expected this fall, after the Air Force conducts site surveys at the bases. There will be three operational squadrons for the C-27J, with a total of 12 aircraft and 270 military personnel.

It has not been determined if all three squadrons will be placed at a single base.

Body found of man who jumped into Missouri River

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — Cascade County officials say they have recovered the body of an 18-year-old Great Falls man who went missing after jumping into the Missouri River in the Hardy Creek area.

Sheriff's Capt. Ray Hitchcock says search and rescue crews were called Wednesday evening after the young man jumped off a 20-foot cliff into the river and then failed to resurface. A friend was in the water when the victim jumped but was unable to reach him before he was swept away by the current.

Hitchcock says they found the man's body at 4:10 p.m. Thursday and it has been turned over to the coroner's office. The man's name is being withheld until his family has been notified.

The death marks the third drowning in the last five years at the jump.

Trucker had driving infractions before fatal crash

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Prosecutors say a truck driver had several commercial driving infractions before he was involved in a crash that killed a volunteer firefighter responding to a wreck on Interstate 90 near Haugan.

Sergey Buslayev, of Emmerson, N.J., was arrested Saturday on warrants for negligent homicide and criminal endangerment in the Dec. 17, 2008, crash that killed 59-year-old Jerry Parrick, a firefighter for the West End Volunteer Fire Department in Mineral County.

Charging documents say Parrick was in his truck with his emergency lights flashing and was parked "nearly a foot" off the interstate's driving lane when the semi slid and jackknifed on the snow-covered road.

Records from the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission say the 56-year-old Buslayev was convicted of reckless driving in 2006, failing to yield to an emergency vehicle in 2003, as well as failing to observe a traffic control device and to make repairs in 2002.

Judge: USFWS plan excluded possible lynx habitat

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is arbitrarily excluding "critical habitat" that could be occupied by the elusive Canada lynx.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled Wednesday the agency excluded large swaths of Western habitat from protection when it recommended in 2009 that 39,000 square miles in Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington be designated as critical habitat.

The agency had argued that it excluded some habitat in the West because there was no evidence that lynx were reproducing there. But Molloy said the absence of that evidence is not necessarily cause for exclusion, especially if the area hasn't been surveyed for breeding animals.

Several environmental groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in 2009, saying more designated habitat is needed in Colorado, Montana and Idaho.