Hudson hunter's black bear may be largest ever in Wisconsin

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Hudson hunter's black bear may be largest ever in Wisconsin
By Andy Rathbun
arathbun@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 10/17/2011 11:19:16 PM CDT


Video from the St. Paul Pioneer Press | TwinCities.com.
Lon Feia of Hudson, Wis. poses with the black bear he killed on his property near Hudson on Oct. 9, 2011. Feia said the bear measured 7-foot 2-inches from nose to tail and weighed in at 648 pounds. He's waiting to see if the bear's skull will be a new state record. (Photo courtesy of Lon Feia)
Lon Feia didn't know how big a black bear he had until he saw the carcass.

He knew there were bears on his property, which borders Willow River State Park in the town of Hudson, Wis., and started setting out bait in July. Soon he began getting "hits."

"Then, finally, on Aug. 24, he started coming in," Feia said. "And in pretty short order he claimed the bait, so (all the other bears) went away."

It was the evening of Oct. 9 when Feia took a shot that brought down the bear - an animal that measured 7 feet, 2 inches from nose to tail.

"He absolutely was an incredible bear," Feia said. "Once we found it, it was clear that this was something special, that this is a big, big bear."

It took four men and an all-terrain vehicle to pull the bear's carcass out of the woods, Feia said Monday. They brought it to a garage where they weighed it from the rafters.

With its feet touching the floor, the animal came in at 648 pounds.

Feia won't know for several weeks if the bear is a state record.

Bear records are determined by skull size, and the skull must be dried for 60 days before an official measurement is taken, said Steve Ashley, director of records for the Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club.

Harvey Halvorsen, a biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources office in Baldwin, said he hadn't known there was a bear that large in the area until he learned of Feia's kill.

"We did not have word of the goliath out there," Halvorsen said. "It was a real


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surprise to me and many others."
The bear, which Halvorsen said was killed legally, may have been the same one spotted in the spring in a culvert along an Interstate 94 frontage road in Hudson.

There were reports at that time of people feeding that bear dog food, Halvorsen said, and there were reports of a bear knocking over bird feeders.

The DNR asks that people not feed bears, he added.

Feia said he didn't think his bear was same one spotted in the culvert. But he said he was sure

it was the one a friend shot with birdshot two years ago in Hudson after it broke into his garage. The reason: Feia found birdshot in the fat of the bear.
Feia said he got more than 200 pounds of meat off the animal, which his family will eat. He said he is not sure whether he will hang the bear hide or have the animal fully mounted.

He's waiting to hear what his wife has to say about the matter.

Bear season started Sept. 7. But the bear Feia had his eye on was coming for the bait sporadically, and at one point wasn't spotted for a week. Deep into September, however, it started coming every day, Feia said.

He saw it about 6 p.m. Oct. 9, and it "didn't make a noise," Feia said. The animal looked wary but not afraid, he said.

At one point, the winds changed, and Feia took his shot.

It was the second bear Feia had hunted in his lifetime, he said.

Ashley, of the Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club, said there are a number of large bears in western Wisconsin and one the size of Feia's is not uncommon anymore.

"They've been getting bigger and bigger every year," said Ashley. "St. Croix County produces some of the top bears in the nation, actually."

Part of that is because Wisconsin regulations prohibiting the use of dogs when hunting bears south of U.S. 8 make for less hunting pressure on the animals, he said.

"(Hunters) tend to shoot a higher number of bears in the dog zone simply because there is a large number of people who hunt using that method," said Ashley. "The really big bears become dog-shy. They get a little age on them, they've been through a few hunting seasons, and they know what dogs are and they know what happens."

He added that the largest big-game animals, such as bears and white-tailed deer, tend to be where their range is expanding - and it's expanding for bears in western Wisconsin.

"Wherever...the herd is growing, you have more animals than hunters generally, and less pressure on the resource," Ashley said.

"There are a lot more bears here than people realize," he said. "They're just very secretive and keep to themselves."

Andy Rathbun can be reached at 651-228-2121.