Homeowner shoots bear invader with shotgun

By Laura Snider
Monday, July 27, 2009

BOULDER, Colo. — It took three rounds from a shotgun, five bullets from a handgun and two shots from a rifle to kill the 120-pound black bear that broke into a Boulder County home early Monday morning.

The bear break-in was the fifth time in a week hungry bears have gotten into Boulder County residences, all while the residents were home. That has wildlife officials urging area residents to take precautions and bear proof their homes.

Brenda Fischer's barking dog woke her at about 2 a.m. Monday morning. When she went upstairs to investigate, she found a bear in the kitchen of her home on Poorman Road, between Sunshine and Fourmile canyons.

Fischer quickly returned downstairs to wake her two children and her husband.

"As soon as I knew there was a bear inside the house, I went to gather up both our weapon and our ammunition, because they are in two different places, and went to place myself with the weapon between the family and the bear," said Paul Fischer, Brenda's husband.

"As soon as I moved to try and make a place for him to get out, he charged me," Fischer continued. "That's when I shot him and he kept charging me. I shot him a second time, and he kept charging me. I shot him a third time and he was finally disoriented enough for me to get away."

The first two rounds from the 12-gauge shotgun were birdshot and the third was rubber bullets, according to a report by the sheriff's office. The Fischers escaped through a bedroom window, leaving the wounded bear inside the house.

When officers arrived on the scene at about 2:30 a.m., they found a bloody bear trying to claw his way through a screen door.

Sheriff's Sgt. Lance Enholm, after determining that the bear was severely injured and would need to be put down, fired his .45-caliber handgun five more times at the animal.

"(The first shot) struck the bear in the head, and it immediately reacted and began flopping around and growling," Enholm wrote in his report. "... I fired another round from my handgun, again striking the bear in the head. This didn't appear to have any impact on the bear, and it kept coming towards me."

It was shot number nine, however, this time from the sergeant's .223-caliber rifle, that finally felled the bear; a final round ended the bear's suffering, according to the police report.

Paul Fischer told officers he was certain the bear, determined to be a juvenile male, was the same one he'd seen on his property several times recently.

State wildlife officials said it's impossible to know, however, if this bear was the same one that broke into three other Boulder County homes in the past week.

"The bears are out right now, and they're looking for food," said Jennifer Churchill, spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "I had hoped that, with all the wet weather this year, we wouldn't have as many incidents. But I'm told they're kind of between food sources right now."

But even with abundant natural food, high-calorie human food can be irresistible for bears, which eat as many as 20,000 calories a day by late summer and early fall to fatten up for the winter. And once the bears have gotten a hold of a human-made food, they'll keep coming back no matter how many berries are on the bushes.

"Birdseed is often times the first thing that bears get in trouble with," Churchill said, "and that starts the vicious cycle of them getting too comfortable with humans."

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2009/jul/27/bears-break-boulder-county-homes/