A 72-year-old man killed a bear that attacked him (3 photos)
A 72-year-old Montana man was picking berries in the woods when he was attacked by a female grizzly bear. The pensioner received serious injuries, but during the struggle he managed to fire a pistol and kill the predator. 
The victim was taken to the hospital.
Dillon Tabish of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks believes the bear was protecting her cubs. The search for the cubs is currently underway; it is unclear whether they will be left in the wild.
"If the cubs are already strong, then they have a better chance of surviving in the wild. In this case, we will not euthanize them," Tabish said.
The attack happened July 18 in the Flathead National Forest, about 3 kilometers north of Columbia Falls, a town of about 5,500 people in northwestern Montana.
That same day, another female grizzly bear was shot and killed for breaking into houses and stealing food near the town of Gardner, north of Yellowstone National Park. Clubfoot has rummaged through trash cans before. 
Wildlife officials can capture a stray bear and return it to the wild, but if it attacks a person, the animal is killed.
About 2,000 individuals live in western Wyoming, eastern Idaho and western Montana, and several thousand more in the Canadian Rockies and Alaska. 
Grizzly bears, which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds, are protected under the Endangered Species Act. However, state authorities are trying to get the hunting ban lifted.
