Bear Killed by John Deere Combine in Wisconsin...BAB!!
Big A** Bear
(Sorry for the 1000 word sentence, it's the way I got it)
A huge hibernating male black bear was killed Nov. 26 in northern Dunn
County when it was hit by a combine. Neil Schlough of Boyceville was
harvesting corn in a field on the Pinehurst Farm at about 7 o'clock that
evening a few miles south of the Dunn/Barron county line, just off of
County Road VVV, or about 22 miles north of Menomonie. The bear was denning in
the field, having dug a hole about a foot deep to lay in and pulled in debris
from the corn stalks in on top of itself. According to his wife, Phyllis,
Neil came upon the bear with the outside row of his combine head and
drove the outside snout into the animal's neck and shoulder and pushed it about
six or seven feet. She said Neil felt the combine strike something and
the outside snout was pushed up into the air (the combine wasn't damaged).
"He stepped out of the combine and saw that he had hit an animal," she said.
"At first he thought one of our dairy steers over there had gotten out, went
in the corn field, ate too much corn and died." But it didn't take long for
Neil to realize it was a bear, but it did take longer to realize how big
it was. She said he called her and told her he thought it weighed about 300
pounds. The DNR was called immediately and Conservation Warden Jim Cleven
responded. A skid steer was taken to the field, and the bear was lifted
up so that it could be dressed out. "With the lights ... we could see that
it was a pretty big bear," Phyllis said. "But we had no idea until the
locker plant put it on a scale that it weighed as much as it did." The bear was
taken to the Augusta Locker Plant to be prepared for mounting. It was
there that the animal was first weighed and measured. Field dressed, the bear
weighed in at 618 pounds and measured 7 feet from head to tail. The
Schloughs were told at the locker that they could add 80 to 100 pounds,
depending on the size animal, to reach an approximate actual weight. "So
we figure that bear had to weigh at least 700. We figure 700 to 720,"
Phyllis said. It's too early to tell if the massive animal will break any records
since the skull has to be dried for 60 days before it can be scored.
Phyllis says they believe it has the potential to break the state mark and will
probably break the Dunn County record. More common DNR wildlife
specialist Jess Carstens said, "This is a thing that, for whatever reason, is
happening quite regularly that [bears] are denning up in the middle of fields and
corn fields seem to be particularly common . due to the amount of debris
from harvesting the c orn that's on the ground. There's a little more
stuff to pull in on top of them as they snuggle into the hole that they've
dug." Phyllis reported that they frequently see bears on their land. And she
said she recently saw a sow and cub in a corn field that was being harvested.
A full-body mount After paying $75 to keep the bear, Neil is having the
bear full-body mounted by Tom Persons, owner of TP Taxidermy. "He's hardly
ever had time to hunt or fish or anything because of farming," Phyllis said of
Neil. " And so, he's going to keep the bear, and he's going to have it
mounted. He's really proud of his trophy.." She said they were told by
Persons that he'll have to use a grizzly bear form to mount the bear
because there aren't black bear mounts big enough to do the job. Person
reportedly also believes the bear to be 15 to 20 years old, but a tooth will be
pulled during the mounting process to determine its age.. According to
Wikipedia.com <http://>; , male bears can reach 660 pounds, but
exceptionally large males can weigh up to 800 pounds. Phyllis said Neil
was recently trying to come up with a name for the huge animal that will soon
occupy a large amount of space somewhere in their home
"I thought this was kind of funny. He said, 'I'm going to name that thing
Hercules.' ... I thought Hercules for that bear was a good name."
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Anyone hear anything about this brute??? Not sure if it's real or not.
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