Bear with 3 cubs attacks man after breaking into Colorado home

A black bear photographed in Utah. Photo: Utah Division of Wildlife Resources // Dustin Stettler

LAKE CITY, Colo. (AP) — A black bear with three cubs attacked a man in his Colorado home after they crashed in through a sliding glass door and he was unable to get them to leave.

State wildlife managers killed all four bears after the attack Thursday night in Lake City, a southwestern Colorado town of 400 people. The man’s injuries were significant, but he didn’t need to go to a hospital, Colorado Parks & Wildlife said in a statement Saturday.

“It’s certainly lucky we didn’t have a fatality because it was close,” Colorado wildlife officer Lucas Martin said in the statement.

The 74-year-old man tried to shoo the adult female bear out with a kitchen chair, but it knocked him into a wall and clawed at him, the wildlife agency said.

The bear injured the man’s head, neck, arms, shoulder, abdomen and calf before he and his wife escaped to a bedroom.

A sheriff’s deputy chased the bears out, and medical responders treated the man at his house. His identity wasn’t released.

Wildlife managers suspect the bears were accustomed to people because of recent reports of bears in the area raiding homes in search of food.

They found the four bears near the couple’s house and killed them, standard practice to stop problem bears that associate people with food.

“It creates a very complex situation to mitigate,” Martin said. “Unfortunately cub bears that are taught these behaviors by their mother may result in generations of conflict between bears and people.”

It was Colorado’s first reported bear attack this year. There were six in 2023.