Every little girl has a stuffed teddy bear – but eight-year-old Sierra Stiles will have one that is a little bit different than most. She just shot and killed hers – a 211-pound black bear – with a .234 rifle in this year’s Maryland bear hunt, becoming the first hunter to score a kill in the state.

After winning one of 200 bear-hunting permits granted by lottery this year -- and acing the required safety test with a score of 98 -- Sierra recalled being rousted out of bed by her mother at 4:58 a.m., wolfing down a bowl of cereal and heading outside, to a field on her granduncle's farm. They waited two hours in the bush under a steady, cold rain.

"I was dragging," Sierra said.

It got a bit brighter as the sun glowed sullenly through a thick blanket of clouds, she said. Sierra's granduncle, Robert Harvey, saw a dark shadow in the distance, but he didn't know what it was. Her father thought it was a bear.

"I froze up," she recalled. Regaining her composure, Sierra stood behind a tree, waiting until the bear was about 50 yards away, she said. Then she took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck the bear behind the shoulder.

Unfazed by the rifle's light recoil, she said, she ejected the casing, reloaded and fired another round.

It hit. The bear ran about 150 feet before collapsing.

"I was really, really, really happy," Sierra exclaimed. "They won't eat now. They won't eat a thing."

Well done, little girl! That will be a heck of a story to tell your kids and grandkids – and one heck of a family heirloom, too, when you bring it back from the taxidermist!

Posted by: Greg at 01:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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