Colorado man attacked by bear in home: ‘Lucky there was no death’

A 74-year-old Lake City resident was attacked after he came face-to-face with a black bear that entered his home through a sliding glass door Thursday evening.

The resident suffered claw wounds to his head, neck, both arms, abdomen, shoulder and calf.

“It’s definitely fortunate that we didn’t have a fatality because it was close,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife Officer Lucas Martin said in a news release.

The resident’s wounds were treated at the scene by medical staff and he declined hospitalization.

Meanwhile, upon arrival, first responders encountered the black bear sow’s three cubs who were still in the house. They chased the three boys out of the house. The boys joined their mother and climbed several trees outside the residence.

CPW rangers later arrived and killed all of the bears after determining that all four had been involved in the home invasion, CPW said. The bears’ bodies were sent to the CPW Health Laboratory in Fort Collins to be tested for disease and undergo a full necropsy.

“There was no doubt that these were bears,” said CPW Area Wildlife Manager Brandon Diamond. “They are terrible circumstances that our county wildlife managers unfortunately face on a routine basis. Apparently these bears were very habitual and willing to enter an inhabited home while the residents were sitting just a few meters away. When a bear reaches this stage, “because of human habituation, there has obviously already been a lot of interaction with people, and if communities don’t work with us and communicate issues, we have no way to intervene.”

The man and an unknown number of other people in the home heard a loud crash at 8:30 p.m. and saw the sow and three cubs enter through a slightly open sliding glass door, CPW reported.

The man grabbed a chair from his kitchen and tried to lead the adult bear back to the door. But the bear attacked the man, pushed him against a wall and stopped briefly above him. The bear then struck the man, causing numerous claw wounds.

Eventually the man and the other residents managed to retreat to a bedroom where they locked themselves.

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Before Friday night’s attack, CPW had only received eight official reports of bear activity in Hinsdale County in 2024, according to a spokesman. However, the agency was aware of conversations on social media about bears entering unoccupied homes and garages in the area in late summer and early fall. Some of these reports were of sow bears with cubs.

“If we have multiple sows with multiple cubs in the city and there are conflicts due to the constant availability of human food sources, it creates a very complex situation that needs to be mitigated,” Martin explained. “Unfortunately, bear cubs who are taught these behaviors by their mother can lead to generations of conflict between bears and humans.”

Martin urged the public to report all bear incidents to CPW.

“We sometimes hear through the grapevine that bears are getting in through open windows or garages and so on,” Martin said. “A lot of times people want to go on social media and post about it, but they never actually call the authorities. We don’t just want calls when something escalates to this level. We want to be able to manage something before it gets to that level.”

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Martin also highlighted important precautions mountain residents should take to deter bears, especially during hyperphagia, the increased appetite that bears develop when they try to fatten up before hibernation. These precautions include closing and securing all windows and doors when not in use, using bear-proof trash containers, storing animal and livestock feed well within buildings (and hanging rags soaked with ammonia or cleaning solutions around the enclosure to eliminate the smell to cover the food). , cleaning a grill after each use, removing bird feeders in the fall, and surrounding compost piles and beehives with electric fencing.

“This is a tragic thing that happened because bears continue to have access to human food sources,” Martin said. “We’ve been talking about this for decades – access to human food sources, including trash and bird feeders, is leading to escalating and sometimes dangerous black bear behavior. The result is a lose-lose for bears and people.”

CPW also recommends that no wildlife be allowed near your home.

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Friday marked the first reported bear attack in Colorado in 2024. There were six reported attacks last year. Since 1960, 96 bear attacks on humans have been reported in Colorado.