Suit filed over hunter's death

By EVE BYRON - IR Staff Writer - 09/22/04

The widow of a Great Falls man killed by a grizzly bear three years ago is suing state and federal agencies, claiming their negligent management practices led to the death of Timothy Hilston.

Hilston was field dressing an elk he had killed in the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management Area northeast of Missoula on Oct. 30, 2001, when he was attacked by a 380-pound female grizzly and her two cubs.

The bears apparently surprised Hilston and bit him repeatedly; the 50-year-old hunter bled to death, according to an investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In documents filed earlier this month in federal district court in Helena, Mary Ann Hilston claims that the USFWS and Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks were informed on Oct. 27, 2001, that there was an aggressive grizzly bear with two cubs that had taken over a hunter's elk carcass in the management area.

"The defendants knew that bears were becoming accustomed to gunshots and that bears were using the sound of gunshots as a ‘dinner bell,' " Mary Ann Hilston claims in court documents. "The defendants did nothing to warn or protect hunters such as Timothy A. Hilston. The actions or inactions of the defendants were negligent."

The USFWS and FWP are responsible for management and operation of the wildlife management area.

A search party found Hilston's body the day after the attack, along with adult and juvenile grizzly bear tracks.

A trap was set for the bears, which returned to the scene three times. The bears were captured and killed by game wardens, who said the animals had acted aggressively toward a human.

News reports stated that the cubs were killed because wildlife managers were afraid that the cubs had taken up their mother's appetite for elk killed by humans.

Mary Ann Hilston is asking for a jury trial and seeking an unspecified amount of money for the wrongful death of her husband.