Posted on 06/08/2005 4:27:20 PM PDT by Malsua
VERNON, N.J. -- A township police officer fatally shot a 100-pound black bear after he and another officer responded to a woman's call that two bruins had broken into her kitchen.
Margo Spilotras had just finished taking a shower when she heard crashing and crunching sounds coming from the back of her home around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. Clad only in a towel, Spilotras ran to the kitchen and found two bears -- a 400-pound mother bear and one of her cubs -- had slid open a screen door and were inside the home.
The mother bear fled out the door after Spilotras saw her, but the cub -- which had been going through a trash can -- merely backed away before Spilotras threw a sneaker at its nose. The cub then fled to the deck as well.
"I threw a shoe at the bear. How stupid am I? I'm extremely lucky it didn't charge me," Spilotras told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Wednesday's editions.
As the cub munched on some Oreo cookies and a box of Cheerios, Spilotras alerted authorities and struggled to close a sliding glass door in the kitchen as the mother bear began pounding on a kitchen window.
When Vernon Patrolmen Scott Alsberge and David Hering arrived, they found the bears and another cub in the yard. One cub then ran up a tree while the mother jumped a 4-foot chain link fence to escape, but the second cub was shot by Hering after it started lumbering toward him in an aggressive manner.
The other cub escaped unharmed and fled with its mother.
State wildlife officials recently warned all state residents to be on the alert for wandering black bears, the strongest advisory issued since the bruin population started to rebound in the state.
Wildlife officials received 487 bear complaints between Jan. 1 and May 9, more than twice the number received during the same period last year.
If he went near the cub with the mother nearby, we'd have a dead or wounded cop.
Just remember there was a bear in someone's back yard not far from you. I don't recall if it was early this spring or last fall.
You mean me or Tahotdog?
Good thing Bradley Campbell, that Democrat goofball, cancelled 2004's hunt. Looks like NJ needs a dead kid or two before it gets serious about the black bears running wild in Sussex County. (And Passaic, and Morris, etc. etc.)
It's funny reading posts by tough guys who think a 100 pound cub is a piece of cake. Disney fans who've never seen a real bear, I guess.
It's probably going to come to that. Sadly.
I did get some more information. The woman was the husband of a guy we know who's a retired school teacher and part time plumber, very nice guy. It was literally less than 1/8 mile away from my house.
The woman called 9/11, they told her to go into the basement and stay there till the deputies arrived. Fortunately, they are doing a major renovation so the whole house is torn up and not finished and therefore the impact of the bears was minimal.
I've had 'em right up to my back screen door. Some bits of wood and screen tween me and a full grown adult male. That was a bit unnerving. I hope this isn't prelude to the movie "When bears attack".
I ment Tahotdog sorry about that.
Yea, I thought so too. No prob.....
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