LAKE CITY, Colo. — A black bear with three cubs attacked a man in his Colorado home after they crashed through a sliding glass door and he failed to get them out.
State wildlife managers killed all four bears after the attack Thursday evening in Lake City, a town of 400 people in southwestern Colorado. The man’s injuries were significant, but he did not need to go to a Colorado Parks hospital & Wildlife said this in a statement on Saturday.
“It is certainly fortunate that we did not have a fatality as it was close,” Colorado wildlife officer Lucas Martin said in the statement.
The 74-year-old man tried to chase the adult female bear away with a kitchen chair, but he was knocked into a wall and clawed at him, the conservation group said.
The bear injured the man’s head, neck, arms, shoulder, abdomen and calf before he and his wife fled to a bedroom.
A deputy chased the bears away and medical responders treated the man at his home. His identity was not released.
Wildlife managers suspect the bears were accustomed to humans due to recent reports of bears in the area raiding homes in search of food.
They found the four bears near the couple’s home and killed them, a standard practice to stop problem bears that people associate with food.
“It creates a very complex situation to mitigate,” Martin said. “Unfortunately, cubs learning this behavior from their mothers can result in generations of conflict between bears and humans.”
It was Colorado’s first reported bear attack this year. There were six in 2023.