Ferndale resident sentenced for killing grizzlies

A Ferndale man must pay $15,000 in restitution and serve three years of probation for killing three grizzly bears last May.

Dan Calvert Wallen was found guilty of three counts of unlawfully taking a threatened species by a U.S. District Court in April.

He was sentenced on Tuesday in Missoula.

Wallen shot three grizzly bears at his home in Ferndale last May.

Court documents say Wallen shot three grizzly bears with a .22 rifle on May 27, 2014, but only one dead bear was found that day. The two other bears were found on May 28 and June 4 near Wallen’s home.

Court documents say that in the evening on May 27, Wallen was in the yard with family and friends when three grizzlies entered the yard and went for the chicken coop, where they had killed several chickens the night before.

Wallen chased the bears off in his truck and returned to the house. About 15 minutes later the bears came back and went for the chickens. Wallen used his truck to corral the bears to the edge of his neighbor’s property, and returned to the house.

He could still see the bears in a field a long distance away, court documents said. Wallen retrieved a .22 rifle from the house and began cleaning up chicken carcasses strewn about the yard.

While he was picking up the chicken carcasses the bears returned to his yard and Wallen fired some shots to scare the bears off. Court documents said he didn’t know if he had hit the bears.

Soon after the bears ran off Wallen received a call from his neighbor who told him there was an injured bear between their houses. Seeing that the bear could only move its head, the neighbor shot and killed it.

The next day when officials were examining the scene they discovered another dead grizzly.

The third bear was found near Wallen’s home by a different neighbor on June 4. Autopsies on the bears indicated they died from wounds inflicted by the gunshots from Wallen’s .22.

In his testimony Wallen described feeling threatened by all three bears due to their proximity and remembered physically shaking after the bears were gone, court documents said. 

When deciding to convict for unlawfully taking of a threaten species the court had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wallen knowingly shot a grizzly bear, and that he was not acting in self defense.

Discrepancies in Wallen’s accounts of the incident caused the court to find lack of credibility in Wallen’s statements, court records said. These discrepancies caused the court to find him guilty.

The maximum penalty for one count of killing an unlawful species is six months in jail and a $25,000 fine.