A 45-year-old elk hunter from Lovell was attacked and injured by a grizzly bear Saturday morning in the North Fork area west of Cody.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department says an initial investigation indicated the man, identified by the Tribune as Jeremy Dickson, was “attacked after a sudden encounter at close range with an adult female grizzly bear with two cubs.”

Dickson and a hunting partner killed the grizzly sow, the Game and Fish says, while the man suffered injuries and was flown to a Billings hospital. The department said the man’s wounds appeared to be non-life threatening, but indicated that he remained hospitalized Monday evening.

Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said Tuesday that the man’s thumb was detached in the attack and first responders at the scene decided a hospital in Billings would offer the best chance for saving the thumb.

Dan Coil, special agent in charge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency “sends our thoughts to the injured individual as he recovers.”

In coordination with Fish and Wildlife officials, the Game and Fish later euthanized the two cubs.

Each situation varies, said Dan Smith, Cody regional wildlife supervisor for the department.

“In this specific case, due to the remote location, and due to the fact that these cubs were very small compared to past situations where we’ve actually let the cubs stay — where we thought they were big enough they might have a chance of survival — it was the humane thing to do,” Smith said Wednesday.

“I don’t think there was any chance that they would have survived the winter by themselves,” he said. “They would have either starved to death or they would have been eaten by something.”

The decision might have been different if there were facilities to take the cubs, Smith said, but “there’s not really any facilities that can take those. There’s not a rehab center in Wyoming. There’s not a place that we could find to place them.”

Grizzly bears remain under federal protections in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. However, “the service partners with states to manage grizzly bears in grizzly country and appreciates Wyoming Game and Fish responding to the incident,” Coil said.

The hunter had called 911 at 7:38 a.m. Saturday, reporting that he’d been mauled and needed assistance, the sheriff’s office said in a Monday news release.

At the time of the call, the man was roughly 5 miles north of U.S. Highway 14/16/20 at the western end of the Wapiti Valley, a little over 20 miles from Cody. Personnel from Park County Search and Rescue, Cody Regional Health and Guardian Helicopter of Riverton were all paged to the scene.

As the crews responded, the injured hunter “made the decision to begin riding out of the wilderness, with the rest of his hunting party, to meet emergency responders,” said Charla Baugher Torczon, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. Search and rescue members met the man on the north side of the Shoshone River at 9:34 a.m. and together they reached the staging area around 10 a.m.

After being treated by EMS personnel, the man was then flown by Guardian Helicopter to Billings.

Steward said the medical flight was complicated a little by firefighting efforts on the Clocktower Fire further up the North Fork.

“We had that big Blackhawk [helicopter] fighting fire coming right into where we were ready to fly out of,” the sheriff said, “and we were able to divert that a little bit [and] make sure we didn’t have any kind of accidents.”

Smith, of the Game and Fish, said the safety of outdoor recreationists “is always at the forefront of our minds.”

“Our thoughts are with the individual who was injured and we wish him a full and speedy recovery,” he said.

It’s a difficult time for both bears and hunters in the fall, he said. Hunters are trying to quietly stalk their prey and bears are in a period of hyperphasia, trying to consume as many calories as possible before going into hibernation. “We try to encourage people to hunt in groups, or at least not alone, because more than one person at least gives you a little more of advantage.”

The hunters were being proactive in their attempts to avoid a conflict. They had used binoculars to “glass” the area prior to moving in to hunt, Smith said. “Unfortunately, it still didn’t work out in their favor.”

The attack was defensive on the part of the sow, he said.

Smith said the best defense is often bear spray.

“I encourage everybody to carry bear spray; I carry bear spray myself,” he said. “You know, you’re carrying your hunting rifle, so you have a firearm. But in some situations, bear spray will be the better tool.”

Smith doesn’t anticipate the number of conflicts decreasing if the state regains management of the species in the future.

“Even when we have bear hunts, we’re not going to hunt them in great numbers,” he said.

The only change would be in the decision-making process; currently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service makes the final call on how grizzly bears are managed.