A 74-year-old man from Lake City Colorado experienced a harrowing incident when a black bear and her three cubs entered his home through a partially open sliding glass door. The attack, which occurred last Thursday evening, resulted in the man sustaining significant injuries before managing to fend off the bear with a kitchen chair, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The bears made their way into the dwelling after a loud crash alerted the residents to their uninvited guests. Attempting to push the adult bear back outside, the victim was knocked into a wall, over which the bear stood and delivered a series of swipes, causing wounds to his head, neck, arms, abdomen, shoulder, and calf. Despite the severity of the attack, the victim was able to receive on-scene treatment and declined further medical care at a hospital. In disturbing the often quiet night of Lake City, this attack also marked the first recorded such bear incident in Colorado for the year as CPW wildlife officer Lucas Martin indicated the fortunate outcome that it wasn’t fatal.
Later that night, even with the residents locked in a bedroom for safety, the cubs remained inside their invaded sanctuary until a Hinsdale County Sheriff’s Deputy successfully hazed them out. The subsequent response from two CPW District Wildlife Managers led to a sad finale, the sow and her cubs were euthanized after their identification as the culprits, with a necropsy and tests for disease pending at CPW’s health lab in Fort Collins.
CPW Area Wildlife Manager Brandon Diamond emphasized the loss, stating, as per Colorado Parks and Wildlife, "It’s a terrible set of circumstances that, unfortunately, our District Wildlife Managers are routinely faced with." He and his colleagues point out that bears with this level of human habituation, often the result of communities not reporting bear activities, set a tragic stage where conservation efforts arrive too late. The sow's teach of scavenging human sources to her cubs could set off an unwelcome cycle of bear-human conflict, imparted throughout generations, as reflected in the social media chatter and official reports received by CPW.
