POLSON – District Judge Kim Christopher’s home was broken into last
weekend. Her husband, Terry Janeway, shot the intruder seven times with
a .45-caliber handgun at close range. Christopher was also armed with
her own 9mm semi-automatic, but did not fire her weapon.

“She was my backup. She had her gun out,” Janeway said.

The 300-pound, four-legged intruder managed to escape out the kitchen
window whence it had entered moments before. It fled on foot, leaving
the kitchen a mess, but harming no one.

“If that bear had come further into the house, and gone downstairs, it
would have got into the pantry. Or upstairs, we have a 4-year-old and a
1 1/2-year-old. That would have been tougher to deal with,” Janeway said
Thursday, recounting the incident.

The wounded black bear escaped, but died later, probably that night.
Janeway and
Christopher found its body Monday in a wooded area near Meadow Road
about a mile from their hillside home in the Jette Meadows subdivision,
seven miles north of Polson.

Bears are relatively common on forested tribal land about two miles
north of the couple’s home. But their home in the subdivision is in open
country, on a steep hillside overlooking Flathead Lake, with no water,
trees, brush or other amenities for wild animals. Janeway said they have
lived in the three-level home for six years, and had not had a bear
visit until last weekend.

But there’s always a first time.

A bear – doubtless the same one – entered their garage Friday night
about 4 a.m. They had left the garage door open to cool off the house.
They were awakened to the presence of the bear by the barking of their
dog.

“Kim got up, called the dog in, and was about to close the garage door.
She hit the button and the garage-door-opener light started flashing,
meaning something was in the way. She saw this big black bear walking
away.

“I got up and grabbed my gun and flashlight. It had scampered out, but
it had drug a 50- pound container of dog food outside, and had been
eating on it,” Janeway said.

Janeway contacted the sheriff’s department and Confederated Salish and
Kootenai Tribes wardens. He was warned the bear would probably be back,
since it seemed to be an aggressive bear, accustomed to human
habitation.

“So Saturday night we closed everything up, all of our sliding doors,
all of our windows except one kitchen window off the deck. We left it
open about 2 inches for ventilation. About 1 a.m., I heard a clanging
noise, the noise of something dropping. I figured the bear was on the
deck – we had left the grill out on the deck. I got my .45 Beretta and
went downstairs,” Janeway said.

As soon as he turned the corner into the kitchen, Janeway saw the bear
crouched on the kitchen counter above the sink.

“It had ripped off the screen, slid the window back and climbed on in,”
he said.

The bear started to turn around, so Janeway aimed and started firing.

“I shot seven rounds. I had eight in the magazine, but the last one
jammed on me, I was firing so fast,” he said.

He went back upstairs to reload, but couldn’t find another magazine in
the dark. Fortunately, his wife had her 9mm handgun handy. He took it
back downstairs, but the bear had disappeared.

Armed with his wife’s handgun and a flashlight, he went outside and
looked for a blood trail, but found none.

“There was nothing out there but claw marks. He had put deep gouges in
the decking,” he said.

Much of Sunday, Janeway searched for the bear in gullies and woods north
of his home, and the bare hillside as well, but found no sign of it.

On Monday evening, Janeway and Christoper took a walk down Meadow Road,
the main arterial through Jette Meadows and spotted the bear, dead under
a tree, a few hundred feet from the road.

With permission of tribal fish and game, a tribal member claimed the
carcass and took it to a local taxidermist.

Janeway said he heard it measured 7 feet from the tip of its nose to the
end of its tail – a very large, mature, male black bear.

He said he was mystified why the bear ventured so far out of the woods
into a built-up subdivision.

“There’s no trees, water. Why would the bear come all the way down here?
Apparently the reservation is overpopulated this year with bears,” he
said.