Mother bear, two cubs killed after breaking into Springs house
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 31 August 2010 22:40
- Written by Nathan
Photo by Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette
By JAKOB RODGERS, THE GAZETTE
Wildlife officials killed a mother bear and her two cubs Tuesday after the cubs broke into a northwest Colorado Springs house.
Retired 4th Judicial District Court Judge Richard Hall called 911 at about 10:15 a.m. Tuesday when he noticed two cubs inside his house at 1592 W. Woodmen Road. He was not injured.
Hall said the cubs entered the house through his front door by pushing down on the door handle. They then went through his trash and opened a silverware drawer.
The cubs didn’t notice he was there until he started yelling at them. At that point, the cubs ran into his dining room and then the living room, where they escaped through a window and met their mother, who was on the porch, Hall said.
The front door was open the entire time.
“Bear are just part a fact of life around here,” Hall said. “This is the first time that we’ve had something of this significance happen.”
Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said the bears then ran under the deck of a nearby residence.
When police and sheriff’s deputies arrived, the bears ran back to the man’s house but did not enter. Rather, they stayed outside before running into the nearby woods.
Wildlife officials eventually treed the bears in a roughly 40-foot tall ponderosa pine. One cub fell to the ground when it was tranquilized, but the mother and the other cub became sedated in the tree.
A Division of Wildlife officer climbed up the tree and knocked the mother bear loose.
While doing this, however, the cub woke up and climbed higher. It fell to the ground when he shot it a second time.
All three were euthanized once on the ground.
Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said wildlife officials had no choice but to kill the bears.
Neighbors said the bears had milled around the neighborhood before, Seraphin said. One homeowner said the bears once entered his garage and broke into his freezer, Seraphin said.
Relocating the bears was also not an option, Seraphin said, as the bears would likely just find another house to raid.
“Well once they start exhibiting that behavior of getting into human habitation, that’s an indication they’ll continue to do that,” Seraphin said. “Relocating them was not an option.”
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