Apparently, the same way you would a human murder suspect. Park officials in Montana are using DNA evidence to determine whether the grizzly bear they caught Wednesday night is the same one that viciously tore through a campsite this week, killing one person and wounding two others in what authorities are calling a rare and unprovoked attack.
"We're investigating using various methods," Andrea Jones of Montana Fish and Parks told CBS, shortly before officials announced they'd caught the bear. "Hair samples, DNA, track size, things of that nature."
Officials believe they have the right bear -- a female grizzly, or sow, weighing roughly 300 to 400 pounds -- because they caught it returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak. It was captured at the Soda Butte campground, site of the attack late Tuesday night, after being lured into a trap made from a culvert pipe that had been set over the tent of the slain camper, The Associated Press reported.
Also captured were two of the mother grizzly's year-old cubs. The sow will be killed after DNA evidence confirms it was the same bear that attacked the victims, according to the AP, while state and federal wildlife officials will determine the fate of the cubs.
Deb Freele, one of the survivors, says the bear that stalked her silently in the middle of the night before sinking its teeth into her arm was "not a normal bear," and wildlife experts agree.
Ron Aasheim of Montana Fish and Parks said it was highly unusual for a bear to assault a human with no apparent cause. He noted that the hikers at the Soda Butte campground near Yellowstone National Park took all the precautions recommended for those in bear country, but were attacked anyway.
One man was killed in his tent Tuesday night as the bear terrorized the campsite and attacked two other campers, both of whom are expected to fully recover from their wounds.
Don Wilhelm, who was sleeping in the campsite with his family when he woke to sounds of the bear attack, described a frightening scene.
"Words cannot describe what it's like to hear someone attacked by a bear," he told the AP.
