Larry Fitzgerald kills biggest grizzly ever in Alaska

AN Alaska hunter killed a grizzly bear which stood almost three metres tall, the largest ever bagged.

Big bear ... Boone and Crockett’s Instagram page shows Larry Fitzgerald and his record kill.

AN Alaska hunter killed a grizzly bear which stood almost three metres tall, the largest ever bagged.

Larry Fitzgerald, 35, says he is not a trophy hunter and was out looking for moose with friends when they came across the grizzly. They stalked it for three hours before Mr Fitzgerald took it down with a single shot to the neck.

“We knew it was big,” he said. “It was a rush.”

“I’m not really a trophy hunter, or anything,” he told Fox News. “But I guess it is kind of cool.”

Mr Fitzgerald nabbed the bear in September but on Friday it was declared the largest ever killed by a hunter. It is the second largest grizzly bear ever documented behind one that an Alaska taxidermist found in 1976, which had a skull that measured less than an inch bigger.

Richard Hale, chairman of the Boone and Crockett Club’s Records of North American Big Game committee, said he was surprised that such a large grizzly bear was found so close to homes.

“One would think that a relatively accessible area, with liberal bear-hunting regulations to keep populations in line with available habitat and food, would be the last place to find one of the largest grizzly bears on record,” he told Fox.

Grizzly bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act but Mr Hale said thriving populations have prompted regulators to consider delisting them.