Woman Who Opened Door To Find A Bear: 'Paws Were As Big As My Face'
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - A lot of people along the Front Range have been encountering bears in the last two weeks. One Boulder woman shared with CBS4's Lauren DiSpirito how she stared down a bear outside her house.
Marianne Martin had one of the closest encounters heard of yet in the recent bear sightings. She had heard bears were hanging around her neighborhood, but says she couldn't have imagined what would happen when she stepped outside her front door around midnight Tuesday.
It took Martin a matter of seconds to figure out what had been riling up her dogs outside her Bluff Street home in Boulder. She went outside to check and found a bear, probably a cub, she says, just a few feet from her door. Martin scrambled to get back inside as the bear climbed up a tree, according to Martin.
"There was a bear … he was about this tall (holds hand up) and he had claws, like his paws were as big as my face and I just screamed," Martin said. "I think I was just trying to get as far away from him as I could, like I was protecting my body … because you have this vision that they're going to come after you."
Martin's encounter is one of a handful reported across the Front Range in recent weeks. The encounters are being triggered by a food shortage facing bears preparing for winter, according to wildlife officials.
Often the bears are just as scared as people are.
"It was exciting, but it was really, really probably one of the scariest things that has ever happened," Martin said.
Martin is thankful her dogs were safely inside her home at the time, and she's warning others.
"I don't want this to happen to anyone else. I want people to put their dogs in and know that the bears are around this neighborhood," she said.
Wildlife officials say the best thing residents can do is make sure they eliminate all food sources, such as bird feeders and fruit from trees on the ground. Also clean out trash bins.