WINHAL, Vt. — Game wardens are investigating a bear attack in the southern Vermont town of Winhall in which a woman was injured near a condominium complex where a mother bear and cubs had been seen regularly this summer and fall, officials said Thursday.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife said the incident began Wednesday evening when the 43-year-old victim let her dog out into the yard of her condominium complex. Immediately upon leaving the house, the dog, a Shih Tzu, treed a bear cub in the yard.
The victim said the cub’s mother subsequently charged her, knocked her to the ground, and began to maul her.
After hearing her yell, the woman’s partner separated her from the bear and brought her inside. When they tried to let their dog in, the bear charged the door, but they prevented it from entering.
Wardens said the victim was treated for non-life-threatening injuries to her head, hand, and side and she was discharged from the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington on Thursday.
The dog was later found uninjured. Wardens have not been able to locate the bear and its cubs.
Wardens investigating the incident learned Thursday that a bird feeder had been present outside the condominium complex until mid-October and a bear-proof trash receptacle was damaged and had not been used properly. Wardens regularly warn people to remove bird feeders during the warm months because they attract bears.
Throughout the summer and fall, a female bear with cubs had been seen in the area. The wardens also found multiple decorative pumpkins outside the complex that showed signs of having been fed on by bears.
“Bear attacks in Vermont are rare, but it is absolutely critical that Vermonters take every step to secure food sources that might attract bears into close proximity with people,” Wildlife Biologist and Black Bear Project Leader Jaclyn Comeau said in a statement.
“Increasingly bold and high-risk behavior from bears is due to Vermonters’ failure to take the proactive steps needed for safely coexisting alongside a healthy black bear population,” she said. “This failure puts both people and bears in danger.”
Vermont wildlife officials said earlier this year that the state was seeing a record number of risky encounters between humans and bears.
In August, a Vermont woman was attacked by a black bear while walking her dogs near her home in the Orange County town of Strafford. In that case, the woman’s dog was credited with scaring the bear away. The victim was not seriously hurt.
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