Colorado officers say a 74-year-old man is fortunate to be alive after being attacked by a black bear in his home Thursday evening. The sufferer, who lives in Lake Metropolis, sustained a number of accidents through the assault. Regardless of the extent of his wounds, officers say the person declined to be transported to the hospital and was handled on the scene.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife defined in a press release {that a} black bear sow and three of its cubs entered the residence in Lake Metropolis round 8:30 p.m. The bears got here in by means of a “partially cracked sliding glass door.” The loud noise startled the residents, and the 74-year-old man charged the sow with a chair. However the sow knocked him right into a wall and clawed him repeatedly, inflicting important wounds to his head, neck, each arms, decrease stomach, shoulder, and calf.
“It’s actually fortunate we didn’t have a fatality, as a result of it was shut,” CPW wildlife officer Lucas Martin mentioned within the press launch.
Regulation enforcement officers from the Hinsdale County Sheriff’s Division responded to the scene together with emergency medical personnel. The residents had locked themselves in a bed room, and the three cubs had been nonetheless in the home. A sheriff’s deputy needed to haze the cubs out of the house.
Two CPW officers arrived on the residence quickly after, they usually discovered the sow and three cubs in a tree exterior. After confirming they had been the identical bears concerned within the assault, officers euthanized all 4 bears. The carcasses have been transported to a CPW lab for necropsies and illness testing.
The id of the members of the family, together with the person who was injured, stay undisclosed. HCSD had no touch upon the incident, and CPW didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. However the company described the incident as a textbook instance of what occurs when bears get too comfy round people and be taught to affiliate us with meals.
“Clearly, these bears had been extremely habituated and had been prepared to enter an occupied home with the residents sitting simply toes away,” CPW wildlife supervisor Brandon Diamond mentioned. “When a bear reaches this stage of human habituation, clearly plenty of interplay with individuals has already occurred, and except communities are working with us collaboratively and speaking points, we now have no alternative to intervene.”
Learn Subsequent: A Bear Killed and Ate an Elderly Woman in Her Home. It’s the First Fatal Black Bear Attack in California’s History
That is the primary confirmed black bear assault in Colorado in 2024, and CPW mentioned it has solely acquired eight experiences of bear exercise in Hinsdale County (the place Lake Metropolis is situated) up to now this yr. Regardless of that comparatively low quantity, CPW workers mentioned they’ve seen a number of tales on social media in latest months about black bears breaking into unoccupied properties and garages. CPW wildlife officer Lewis Martin defined that Thursday’s incident ought to function a public security reminder to report all black bear encounters, even the seemingly innocuous ones, to the company.
“Usually, individuals wish to get on social media and submit about it, however they by no means truly name the authorities,” Martin mentioned. “We don’t solely need calls when one thing escalates to this stage. We wish to have the ability to do some administration earlier than issues get to this stage.”
