Man Armed With Knife Kills Hungry Bear

Tuesday, November 18th, 2003

Whoa. Man Armed With Knife Kills Hungry Bear:

Hirsch had only a 3 1/2-inch knife blade when he came across the bear in his backyard in Williams Lake, about 190 miles northeast of Vancouver.
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As the bear began to circle him, Hirsch faced it like a wrestler in a ring.

“It was like a knife fight that you’d see in an old-time Western,” he said. The bear swatted out at him, but each time it lunged, he managed to stab it.

“I couldn’t tell you if the fight lasted three seconds or three minutes,” Hirsch said.

Three stabs to the bear’s chest and one to its neck finally did the bruin in.

It stood about 5 foot 7 inches to Hirsch’s 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 200 pounds, according to conservation officers who inspected it.

“I can say it sure looked smaller the next morning than it did during the fight,” said Hirsch.

The bear was in poor shape, suffering from a severed tongue and broken jaw, the conservation officer said. Its stomach was empty and the bear had little fat on it.

Hirsch, a retired electrical foreman at B.C. Hydro, suffered a scratch to the top of his head and scratches to his back — and a shredded T-shirt.

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