Windber man’s grizzly likely new P&Y record

Chatfield, Minn. — A Pennsylvania man has a monster grizzly bear that the Pope and Young Club believes could be a new archery world record. 
On the morning of the eighth day of his 2009 hunt, after a stand-off at 10 yards, bowhunter Rodney Debias, of Windber, Somerset County, made a perfect 30-yard shot at a monster grizzly bear near Unalakleet, Alaska. 
The bear has an initial record book entry score that is likely to best the current P&Y world’s record, once it is verified. The current world record grizzly bear is 263⁄16, also taken in Unalakleet, Alaska, in 2004 by Dennis Dunn.
The Debias’ grizzly bear has an initial entry score that is a whopping full inch larger than the existing world record. Its initial entry score, 273⁄16, is yet subject to panel judging verification, which could change the final accepted score.
Grizzly bears are the interior relatives of the coastal Alaskan brown bears. They are found in huntable populations in Alaska (north of the Alaska Range and the 62nd Parallel), British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.
The P&Y score on bears is taken on the skull and is the sum of the length of skull and the width of skull, to the nearest 1⁄16th of an inch. This grizzly bear is entered into the current, ongoing 29th recording period – the biennium representing entries accepted into the P&Y Records Program from Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 31, 2014.
At the close of every two-year biennial recording period, numerical awards and honorable mentions are awarded to the most outstanding bow-harvested animals in each species category that have been entered during that recording period. 
New world records are verified and proclaimed, and awards are presented to the animals during the Pope and Young Club’s biennial convention and awards banquet.
Outstanding North American big game specimens, plus roughly a hundred more of the biggest and best over the past two years, will be on display at the Pope and Young Club’s National Convention in Phoenix, Ariz., April 15-18, 2015.