Link: The Redoubt Reporter For hours Saturday, passers-by had been stopping to watch a grizzly casually going about its business along the Sterling Highway near Cooper Landing. A pair of troopers stopped by to direct traffic. Then two hunters arrived in camouflage clothing and, after the bear crossed the road, shot and killed it. (Continued on jump)

Two witnesses, Pamela Locke and her husband, say the men illegally hunted from the highway but the troopers did nothing. She flagged the troopers down as they were leaving the scene. "I said, ‘You're just going to let them shoot from the damn highway?' They said, ‘Ma'am, they're not on the highway,' and he took off. He didn't want to discuss it any further," Locke said.

A Fish and Game spokesman says the incident is under investigation. Locke says even if the incident was legal, it wasn't really hunting. "It was like you could have been wearing a clown suit and shot this bear. It was not a hunt," she said. "I equate it to shoving my way through a zoo and shooting a bear in a cage."

UPDATE: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the bear carcass has been seized and one of the hunters has been cited for shooting in a no-shooting zone.

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