Bear Killed by John Deere Combine in UP Michigan

[Lee Borgersen]

Bear Killed by John Deere Combine in UP Michigan


Monster black bear killed by combine





 
Neil Schlough of rural Boyceville is pictured with the bear he killed while harvesting a corn field in northern Dunn County in late-November. Submitted Photo/For Dunn County News


 




 






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 corn that’s on the ground. There’s a little more stuff to pull in on top of them as they snuggle into the hold 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, 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.”

Joel Becker can be reached at joel.becker@lee.net.


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[The General]

I thought this thing was proved to be poached or something like that? 

[dakids]

I think I read something about an out of state hunter shot it during the deer season(only wounded it), bragged about it.  I don't think the bear could move to fast to get out of the way of the combine.  I think the DNR also confiscated the bear.

[mncowboy]

photo looks fake!  bear looks like it was photo shopped onto an other photo

[MNBucKKiller]

I'm wondering what that lady i doing?????

[Dotch]

lol! That's a good question. I think it was probably killed by an IH combine though. A John Deere would've ground the snot out of it, just like it does the corn. 

[Go Big Red!]

It was a poached bear and it was killed in Western Wisconsin by Barron I believe, not the UP of Mich.  They claimed a combine rolled into it's dean as it was hibernating during harvest time.

[Go Big Red!]

Here's the truth behind the bear.  And the bear picture posted is a actual photo... it's that big.


Fact Finder: Monster Bear Killed by U.P. Combine?

http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?id=408399

A monster sized bear was killed by combine in a field in southern Chippewa County. At least that's what it says in an email that viewers have sent me. It sure sounds real. It has a ton of facts, names, dates, even colorful quotes, but does it have any truth to it? That's the subject of this Fact Finder.

There is an email that's making the rounds. It claims that on November 2nd, a Chippewa County Farmer by the name of Neil Schlough was harvesting corn on his farm on South Maple Road about 5 miles north of Kinross when all of sudden his combine harvester hit and killed a massive 700 pound black bear that was hibernating in the field. According to the email, a conservation warden, Jim Clevin or Jesse Carstens came out confirmed the kill. After doing that, the officer sold Schlough a harvest tag for 75 dollars allowing the farmer to keep the dead bear. The email even goes on to say that Shlough took it to nearby TP Taxidermy to have a full mount and it appears this could be the largest bear ever killed in the state of Michigan. The email reads like a great story with tons of facts, names, locations, even a picture or two on some of the emails, but is it true? Viewers wanted to know, so I got to work.

My first call was to the Michigan DNR-E to ask them about it. Mary Dettloff responded "no one by the name of "Jim Cleven" or "Jesse Carstens" works for the Michigan DNR."

Which doesn't necessarily mean the story is a hoax, but it certainly forced me to start looking elsewhere. I contacted Tom Persons who owns TP Taxidermy. His shop is located in central Wisconsin and it turns out he knows all about this email and this bear. Tom told me that yes in deed; he had the bear in his possession for awhile. He went on to say that it was brought in by a farmer in Wisconsin whose real name is Neil Schlough. Tom says he was told the animal was killed by Schlough's combine one night in November of 2008.

I needed to confirm all of this. Now that I had the right state, I contacted the Wisconsin DNR. They said the names, and story in the email were pretty accurate. The locations in Michigan then were completely false.

So according to the DNR and the taxidermist, a farmer did discover this bear after he hit with combine. The bear was huge, and could be a new state record. All of that is true! But the story doesn't end there!

As it turns out when the DNR and the Taxidermist looked closer, they say they found bullet holes in the bear's neck.

The WI DNR told me the bear "was found to be shot illegally while it was hibernating by North Dakota resident deer hunting in an unharvested corn field. A day later the farmer started harvesting the corn and rolled it over with his combine, he initially thought he killed it, but an investigation by WI DNR Wardens found it was already dead when he hit it. It was initially tagged by the Warden so the farmer could have it. When information came out that it was poached the bear hide and skull was seized as evidence. (David A. Hausman Warden Supervisor.)

That North Dakota hunter admitted the shooting, paid a fine and went home. Now the question is who owns the potential state record bear's carcass? The Wisconsin DNR told me since it was illegally harvested it's theirs for at now. The Schlough's have publicly argued that they essentially already bought the bear from the DNR for 75 dollars, and still claim that the animal was alive, albeit shot, when the fatal blow came from the combine.

[rem]

HAS ANYBODY GOT THERE TOOTH AND RIB RESULTS BACK YET ??????

[Go Big Red!]