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May 4--With two shots of her compound bow, Michele Leqve of Rochester became the first woman known to have shot a polar bear with bow and arrow.
She and her husband, Jim, went to the Arctic in early April for a hunt of a lifetime. Leqve shot a large male bear on April 14, the first day she hunted. The bear is big enough to make the record book of the Pope & Young Club, which keeps official rankings of who shot trophy big-game animals with bow and arrow.
Leqve, 39, is no stranger to big-game hunting. She has now shot nine big-game animals in North America, ranging from whitetail deer to polar bear.
She and her husband, who photographed the hunt for a video for national TV, went to Pond Inlet in Nunavut, Canada, which is northwest of Greenland and inside the Arctic Circle.
Temperatures ranged from about 10 below zero in the day to 40 below at night.
With guides, they went out onto sea ice and late in the day the guides saw the big bear. She got within 30 yards and shot once but missed. The next two shots hit, Leqve said.
"It's my most precious hunt to date," she said.
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