State Fish and Wildlife officials are searching for a curious black bear while a 19-year-old Crestline man who was scratched up during their unusual encounter is recovering from his injuries.
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Kevin Wood was hospitalized for treatment of cuts to his face and chest after the attack on Monday, June 15, and is now home.
The bear had torn off the screen covering an open window above Wood’s bed and took a swipe at the teen when they came face to snout.
Fish and Wildlife spokesman Cort Klopping said no decision has been made on what to do with the bear if it is captured.
“Bear sightings are common,” Klopping said, noting that bears usually limit themselves to foraging through trash cans or looking for pet food. “What you don’t really expect to see is having this kind of interaction.”
Klopping said the bear, which he described as dark brown with a light-brown nose, was likely hungry and smelled food in the wooded, rural residential area west of Highway 138. The teen’s mom had described the bear.
“Bears have a nose 100 times more powerful than a human and eight times more powerful than a bloodhound,” Klopping noted.
The encounter happened just before 6 a.m. while Wood was in bed. The window was open and after the bear tore off the screen, Wood and the bear startled each other, prompting the bear to paw at Wood, Klopping said.
Wood then screamed and his mother, Darah Wood, came to his room. She said she yelled at the bear, scaring it off.
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“I heard a little bit of a ruckus,” she told KTLA. “I see (Kevin), and his face is just covered with blood. I could see his lip was entirely split.”
Officials took samples of the bear’s DNA off the teen and sent them to the Fish and Wildlife laboratory in Sacramento, where technicians did not find a match for a previously tagged bear, Klopping said.
Darah Wood told the Southern California News Group that because of the public interest in the case, she is concerned for the safety of the bear that attacked her son as well as the well-being of other bears.
“The authorities are supposed to take care of it,” Wood said. “They have policies and procedures and whatnot to handle everything. It’s everyone else I’m concerned about.
“See, our community tends to be quite into guns, and I don’t want anyone going vigilante on us and very likely getting the wrong bear.”
Klopping said people who live in or near bear habitats can make their neighborhoods less attractive to bears if they secure their trash cans when they aren’t out for pickup, remove fruit that has fallen from trees and clean up pet food dishes and barbecues.
Anyone who encounters a bear should make themselves appear as large as possible by waving their arms, yelling at the bear and slowly backing away — not running.
No one should approach a bear to take a photo, Klopping said.
“And you certainly would not want to approach a cub, because mother bears are very protective,” he said.
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