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Bears are moving into cities
I first saw this MSNBC story on Facebook where a friend of mine, also a dachshund owner like the woman in the article, linked to it and said she would have done the same thing. What’s the headline? “Alaska Woman Punches Bear in Face to Save her Tiny Dog.”
Brooke Collins is 22 years old and lives in Juneau, Alaska. Her wildlife encounter didn’t occur when she was out camping or hiking in the wilderness, but rather in her own urban neighborhood. The Alaskan capital often sees bears prowling its streets for food, but they’ve been more prevalent this year because a bad berry crop meant they lost a major food source.
Collins is used to problems like this so she always checks out her door before leaving, especially with one of her two dogs in tow. But one evening her older female dachshund, Fudge, dashed out of the door before Collins had a chance to take a good look around. The next thing Collins knew, a black bear grabbed Fudge and bit the back of her neck.
“It had her kind of like when they eat salmon,” Collins said to the Reuters News Agency. “I was freaking out. I was screaming at it. My dog was screaming. I ran up to it…I just punched it right in the snout and it let go.”
After Collins hit the bear her boyfriend was able to chase it away. Collins said the bear appeared startled, but obviously it wasn’t daunted for long because it returned the following Tuesday, for trash day. It’s a bear that Collins had already seen around the neighborhood before its attack on a Sunday night.
The residents of Juneau are used to seeing bears around. The ones that venture into cities are usually a bit more accustomed to the life they find there, so actual attacks are uncommon.
Encounters between bears and dogs more often involve some growling and posturing, but no real contact. Even Collins says that the most that’s happened before is that her little dachshund has chased bears. The one from the attack must have been particularly hungry.
I feel sorry for everyone in this story, the bear included. It’s not a tale of a woman and her dog running into a bear in the woods, where food might have been prevalent. Just to find enough to eat the poor black bears must come all of the way into a bustling city and take risks they normally wouldn’t. Based on the rarity of such incidents, as testified by Collins herself, these sound like the actions of a starving, desperate bear.
Still, it’s wonderful to know that Collins was able to save her pup. What I wonder is whether or not I’d be able to do the same thing in the same situation. I believe my friend when she said she would; she’s always been a more confident, take-charge person than me.
If I saw a bear with my dog I’m worried that I’d be so shocked I wouldn’t be able to move. But then perhaps if I, like Collins, lived somewhere where bear encounters was more common, I might be more used to them and thus able to take action.
I can only hope that I’d be able to do all that I could to protect my pets in a similar situation. What about you; how do you think you’d react if a wild predator like a bear threatened one of your pets?
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*(This image by RickC is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
