Brazen bear punched after breaking into home on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast
Bear shocks Gibsons family by trying to break in not once, but twice
Police say a black bear has been put down after it broke into a home and terrified a family in Gibsons, B.C.
Sunshine Coast RCMP say Eleri Froude was home with her two sons and a family friend on Saturday evening when an adult male bear wandered in through the sliding glass door.
"I heard my two-year-old come into the house and he said, 'mum, look!'" Froude said. "There was a black bear standing in my dining room, almost in my living room. I kinda gasped and my friend said, 'get those kids and get them in the bedroom.'"
While Froude locked herself in a bedroom with her children, the bear roamed through the house, going into most of the rooms and drooling on the dining room table.
Police say her friend yelled, banged pots and shook chairs at the animal before punching it in the nose, which made the bear retreat outside.
"The bear jumped back far enough for him to close the sliding glass door and lock it," Froude said.
The bear then began pawing and chewing at the screen door until police arrived and scared it into the bushes with air horns and other methods.
Froude said her friend stayed at the house to make sure the bear didn't come back, but it later did.
"[My friend] walked around to the front of the house, kind of around the block, and now the bear was at the carport, trying to get in … saw my friend and chased him and chased all the way around the block back to his truck," she said.
"When he jumped into the truck, he called me and said, 'you need to call the police.'"
RCMP say conservation officers later put down the bear, which weighed about 115 kilograms, after determining it lacked a fear of humans.
With files from The Canadian Press