Alberta men recovering from grizzly sow attack

Two men who got between a grizzly and her cubs are recovering from a bear attack in the back country in northwestern Alberta.

The men were walking in the remote Prairie Creek area, about 150 kilometres south of Grande Prairie, on Saturday when they unknowingly came between a grizzly sow and her two cubs, said Dave Ealey, a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resources on Monday.

The mother bear attacked the two men, but they were carrying a rifle and managed to fire a shot. Ealey said the shot did not appear to hit the sow.

The men, reported to be a father and son looking for moose antlers, were able to make it to their vehicle and drive to Grande Cache for help. One man was treated at the hospital there and was released. The other was transferred to a Grande Prairie hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Ealey said he doesn't believe the mother bear poses a risk to others.

"The circumstances of this particular case led us to feel that there was not a broader public safety concern. So we haven't done anything more involved than doing signage in and around the area and notifying the users of that road — the oilfield workers — that there had been the incident on the weekend," he said.