Pennsylvania woman with dog surprised by four bears outside her home survives attack
A woman was injured by one of four black bears Tuesday evening in Butler County when she left her dog go outside.
John Hays, chief of the Butler Township Police Department, said the incident happened about 8:30 p.m. in the 100 block of Bellefield Drive in the township.
He said the woman left her small dog, possibly a Pomeranian, outside and there was a mother bear with three cubs that are about a year old.
“The bear went after the dog and she went out of her house to save the dog and the bear went after her,” he said in a telephone interview.
“It swatted her and knocked her down,” he said, adding that she had bites on her arms and back of her head.
The woman was able to get her dog and get back into the house.
The bears ran up a nearby tree. The Pennsylvania Game Commission responded and euthanized the mother bear. The smaller trio was trapped and removed from the location.
Hays said the mother bear weighed about 250 pounds and the cubs were born last year and are about 90 pounds each.
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The woman was taken to a Butler hospital and then transferred to a Pittsburgh facility. Hays believes the injuries are not life-threatening. The dog survived the encounter.
Hays, who has worked for the department for 44 years, said this was a unique call. “It’s kind of rare,” he said about bear attacks.
“This is the first bear attack we’ve had in our area, it’s a pretty rare incident,” Hays said about someone getting hurt by wildlife.
There are bears that live in or pass through the township.
“We get reports of bears quite often in the spring and the fall. I wouldn’t say we have a high concentration of bears, but they do come through,” Hays said.
He believes the bears were eating from a bird feeder as it was knocked over. “Take down your bird feeders,” Hays said about removing food items that may appeal to a bear’s sense of smell.
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Travis Lau, communications director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said Wednesday morning they are having the sow tested for rabies. If the test comes back negative, the cubs which are old enough to survive on their own, will be released back into the wild. “They are yearlings that would be setting off on their own in the coming weeks anyway,” he said through an email.
They are still investigating the incident to learn more about what happened.
In addition to bird feeders, bears can be attracted to household garbage, barbecues and pet food that’s left outdoors.
Hunters shot 29 bears in Butler County this past fall. The are about 18,000 bruins in Pennsylvania.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Do black bears attack people in Pennsylvania?
