Glacier National Park, Montana - Grizzly Bear has a TREAT! Grizzly Bear attacks & kills Brad Treat, an idiot mountain bicyclist

A grizzly bear has attacked and killed a 38-year-old mountain biker riding just outside Glacier National Park in Montana.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said Brad Treat, from West Glacier, was killed Wednesday afternoon on a trail in the Halfmoon Lakes area of the Flathead National Forest.

Curry said Treat was riding with another person when they surprised the bear, which knocked Treat off his bike. The second rider left to look for help and was not injured.

Treat was a law-enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Authorities found his body at the scene, but not the bear. Wildlife and law-enforcement officials were searching for the grizzly Wednesday evening.

'Brad was an integral member of our area law enforcement team and a friend to us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family tonight,' Curry told the Flathead Beacon.

Treat grew up in nearby Kalispell, where was a standout distance runner in high school, his former coach, Paul Jorgenson, said.

'He was a really good runner but he was also a kind-hearted person who cared about people,' Jorgenson told the Beacon.

The area where he was killed is about three miles from the park entrance at West Glacier. Authorities have since closed the area to help protect the public.

Grizzlies in the Lower 48 states have been designated a threatened species since the 1970s, but their numbers are increasing and so are conflicts between humans and bears.

The grizzlies in the Glacier area among about 1,000 bears in the Northern Continental Divide

Ecosystem, which also includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness south of the park. At least 700 more grizzlies live in and around Yellowstone National Park, which is roughly 360 miles south of Glacier.

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