DNA Test Proves Bear Killed By CPW Attacked Man Inside Colorado Home
PINE, Colo. (CBS4) -- The bear euthanized Tuesday morning was the sow that attacked a man inside his home in Pine on Monday night, according to officials with Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
"Officials at the University of Wyoming Forensics Lab reported back to Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers that the bear submitted for DNA testing had human protein under its claws," CPW announced Wednesday. "This confirms the bear euthanized early Tuesday morning was the one in the attack."
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A 71-year-old man and his wife used their bare hands and a baseball bat to chase a female bear and her two cubs out of their kitchen. The couple says the bears entered through a screen door.
"The man was downstairs watching TV with his wife when he heard noises coming from upstairs," Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a statement released Tuesday.
"It was growling, I was growling. Between the two of us we were having a lot of attitude," the Jon Johnson said.
Johnson said the bear swatted at him and he punched it in the stomach.
"She swatted me in the nose. She was down here, she was low when she swatted me. I turned around I punched her in the nose. From that point we started going back-and-forth like a dance. She took some swipes here swipe on my chest."
A woman who lives with Johnson said she hit the mother bear with a baseball bat until both bears ran out the screen door.
George Field said she never thought she'd end up doing battle with bear inside her own home.
"I grabbed the bat. I missed the big bear fight. All I remember seeing was a big brown blob in front of me. I empowered myself. I've never been that strong. I whacked that bear as strong as I could... you would have thought I was a Louisville slugger," said Field.
Officials estimate the bear was 10 years old and weighed 215 pounds.
"The necropsy showed this bear had a significant amount of trash in its stomach," CPW tweeted Wednesday afternoon.
