A bear and its three cubs slid open a sliding glass door and ventured into the home of a 74-year-old Colorado man, injuring him in the process. The incident, the first of its kind this year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported, occurred in Lake City on Thursday at around 8:30 p.m. The man sustained wounds to his "head, neck, both arms, lower abdomen, shoulder and calf.”
According to a release from the agency, the man and his family were startled by a loud crash from inside their home. Upon coming face to face with the predators, the man grabbed a chair from the kitchen to back them out of the house. However, the mother charged at him, knocking him into the wall, thereby hurting him.
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A CPW wildlife officer says it was a close call; the bear could have killed the man
According to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife press release, first aid responders tended to the man's needs on the scene of the incident, but he declined to be taken to the hospital. The release also reveals that the cubs were still inside the home when law enforcement and medical personnel showed up. By then, the residents had locked themselves inside a room in hiding.
A Hinsdale County Sheriff’s Deputy managed to shoo the cubs away. According to CPW wildlife officer Lucas Martin,
"It’s certainly lucky we didn’t have a fatality, because it was close."
Furthermore, two fellow CPW District Wildlife Managers also rushed to the scene. Outside, the beast and its offspring scaled nearby trees, and following a process of preliminary confirmation, the omnivores were seized and subsequently euthanized. The bodies were then transported to CPW’s health lab in Fort Collins for further testing.
CPW Area Wildlife Manager Brandon Diamond also chimed in,
"There was no question that these were the bears involved. It’s a terrible set of circumstances that, unfortunately, our District Wildlife Managers are routinely faced with. Clearly, these bears were highly habituated and were willing to enter an occupied house with the residents sitting just feet away. When a bear reaches this level of human habituation, clearly a lot of interaction with people has already happened, and unless communities are working with us collaboratively and communicating issues, we have no opportunity to intervene.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife also revealed that this last year, there have only been eight reports of bear activity in Hinsdale County. They are calling on the public to report all such instances or activities to the nearest CPW office to prevent things from snowballing into a full-scale attack.
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