Bear bites Cortez kids sleeping in yard
Children have minor injuries, wildlife agency seeks animal
The Durango Herald Friday, July 16, 2010 [here]
Colorado Division of Wildlife officers set a trap Thursday for a bear that bit two children in a rural Cortez subdivision earlier in the day.
The children, a brother and sister, ages 14 and 12, respectively, were sleeping in a residential backyard about two miles south of Cortez when a bear bit the boy about midnight.
The boy screamed and shined his flashlight at the bear, which ran away.
Paramedics treated the boy at the scene for a puncture wound. The bear bit the girl’s arm, but it was only bruised. She didn’t require treatment.
DOW officers arrived at the scene about 2 a.m. and a team from the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services arrived a short time later.
Officers started tracking the bear with trained dogs, but they couldn’t locate the animal. They returned to set a trap in the neighborhood in case the bear, believed to be a juvenile, returns.
If the animal is captured, it will be destroyed.
“A bear that has physical contact with a person is a threat,” Patt Dorsey, area manager for the DOW in Durango, said in a statement. “In the interest of public safety, we intend to remove the bear if we catch it.”
A similar biting incident occurred Saturday when a bear bit one of two men sleeping under a blanket near the Manna Soup Kitchen in Durango. The bite on the arm didn’t require medical attention.
A team from the DOW and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, using dogs, located the bear about 300 yards away from the soup kitchen and killed it.
In the Cortez incident, Jerry Apker, carnivore biologist for the DOW, said the encounter probably was as random as it was unfortunate.
Bears, he said, are active at night and walk miles in search of food.
Cortez is surrounded by open land that provides suitable bear habitat, Apker said.
The DOW had received no reports about bears in the area previously,
The DOW advises residents that because western Colorado is bear country, they should make no food available to bears.
Garbage, bird seed, pet food and barbecue grills are very attractive to bears.
Note: no bird feeders, no garbage cans, no barbecues. No chickens, no livestick of any kind, no pets, no children. Or else government bears, protected by urban special interest groups, will attack you and your family.
Maybe the solution is to capture the bears and let them loose in New York City where the bear lovers can have their own children attacked. Same with the wolves.