A black bear and three cubs broke into a Lake City home Thursday and attacked a 74-year-old man, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The mother bear and her cubs opened a partially cracked sliding glass door and entered the home around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, causing a loud bang that startled the people inside, CPW officials said in a press release.
The man grabbed a chair from his kitchen and tried to lead the adult bear back out the door, but the bear attacked him, slamming him into a wall, CPW officials said.
“It is certainly fortunate that we did not have a fatality as it was close,” CPW wildlife officer Lucas Martin said in the news release.
CPW officials said the bear repeatedly struck at the man, injuring his head, neck, arms, abdomen, shoulder and calf. Paramedics treated the claw wounds at the scene and the man did not need to go to hospital.
Other residents of the home continued to try to chase the bear and her cubs away, but all four bears were still in the home when officers arrived. CPW officials did not specify how many other people were in the home, but said the group escaped the bears by locking themselves in a bedroom.
A Hinsdale County deputy was eventually able to get the cubs out of the house, but the sow and all three cubs climbed trees outside the house instead of leaving, CPW officials said.
All four bears involved in the attack were euthanized and sent to CPW’s health laboratory in Fort Collins to be tested for disease and undergo a full autopsy, the news release said.
“There was no doubt that these were the bears involved,” said CPW Area Wildlife Manager Brandon Diamond. “It is a terrible set of circumstances that our district wildlife managers are unfortunately confronted with on a routine basis.”
Diamond said the bears were very habituated and had become too comfortable with people, as they were willing to enter an occupied home while the residents were just feet away.
“When a bear reaches this level of human habituation, there has clearly already been a lot of interaction with humans, and unless communities work with us and communicate issues, we have no way to intervene,” Diamond said.
Thursday night’s attack marks the first reported bear attack in Colorado and the ninth report of bear activity in Hinsdale County so far this year, CPW said.
According to CPW data, only 96 bear attacks on humans have been reported in Colorado since 1960. That’s less than two attacks per year.
CPW officials said more attacks and burglaries could have occurred, but none were reported.
“We sometimes hear through the grapevine or rumor mill that bears are coming in through open windows or going into garages and things like that,” Martin said. “A lot of times people want to get on social media and post about it, but they never call the authorities. We don’t want to be called only when something escalates to this level. We want to be able to do some management before things get to this level.”
CPW recommends bear-proofing your home Through:
- Keep the waste in a secure place and do not put the waste outside until the morning of collection.
- Clean garbage cans regularly to keep them free of food odors, especially ammonia.
- Use a bear-proof trash can or dumpster.
- Removing bird feeders between April 15 and November 15. Bird feeders are a major source of conflict between bears and humans.
- Do not feed other wildlife such as deer, turkey or small mammals.
- Make sure bears are uncomfortable around your home. If you see one, yell at it, throw things at it, or make noise to scare it away.
- Securing compost piles and picking up rotting fruit from trees. Bears are attracted to the smell of rotting food.
- Keeping animals or livestock in a fully covered area with electric fencing if possible.
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