Northwest Montana doesn’t typically make the morning news on the East Coast, but when reports that a bear had attacked and killed a mountain biker near Glacier National Park began circulating online Wednesday, the deluge of media requests began.

Janette Turk, the lone public affairs officer for the Flathead National Forest, said mauling victim Brad Treat’s former track coach, Paul Jorgensen, got flooded with calls from national news outlets after articles carried quotes attributed to him.

“He left town this afternoon, the coach, to get away from it,” Turk said. “[Treat’s] mother called me to ask if I could handle the calls she was getting.”

By late Thursday afternoon, Turk estimated about 70 different media organizations had tried contacting her during the 24 hours since the news broke. Of those, she guessed about 50 were from outside the state.

“NBC News was coming from L.A., and I think the ‘Today’ show may have interviewed our regional forester today, so it’s pretty national,” Turk said. “There’s a lot of interest — ‘Good Morning America’ asked to be escorted out to the scene.”

That’s not currently a possibility, she noted, given that a wide area is closed to the public while a team of wildlife officials scour the area seeking the killer bear.

Major media outlets carrying the story Thursday morning included the Associated Press, Washington Post, the BBC, the Daily Mail and the New York Daily News.

A Google news search Thursday afternoon turned up more than 6,000 results for articles containing “grizzly,” “attack” and “Glacier National Park” in the previous 24 hours.

Many British news websites also carried the story.

The headline from The Independent in Britain read: “Grizzly bear wanted by police after killing a cyclist near Glacier National Park.”

The Evening Standard in the United Kingdom wrote: “Grizzly bear kills cyclist in mauling at US beauty spot Glacier National Park.”

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry, whose office initially confirmed the death of Flathead Forest law-enforcement officer Brad Treat, said the flood of media requests to his office included multiple international outlets. Curry said he’s also answered calls from “Good Morning America,” the “Today” show and the main studios of all the major network television channels.

“That’s pretty much all I’ve done today and last night,” Curry said. “A lot of international media have called and, to be honest, I haven’t returned a lot of their calls. We’ve been busy.”

He attributed the international appeal of the news story to a couple of basic elements: It happened just outside a national park and it involved a grizzly bear — at least as it was first reported.

Initial statements from law enforcement officials that a grizzly bear was behind the fatal attack were dialed back Thursday morning when a press release from the local office of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks noted that the state agency had not yet confirmed the bear’s species.

But John Fraley, the regional spokesman in Kalispell for the state wildlife agency, said the media blitz remained consistent throughout the day.

“The bear is a big, high-profile animal, even though we’re not sure it was a grizzly bear. Just the fact that it has to do with biking, hiking or jogging on trails, I think we all think, ‘Gosh, this could be us,’” Fraley said.

While he primarily has been fielding calls from reporters and other media representatives while wardens and biologists from his office piece together the details of the incident, he also has gotten plenty of inquiries from other people.

“We’re hearing from individuals across the country as well, as far away as Hawaii, expressing their opinion on what should be the fate of the bear,” Fraley said. “I’ve been pretty consistent. I’ve just told them that when and if we catch the bear, we’ll decide what to do when we have all the information.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.