{"id":610539,"date":"2026-09-24T18:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610539\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:08:09","slug":"12-year-old-boy-fights-off-mama-black-bear-in-backyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610539\/","title":{"rendered":"12-year-old boy fights off mama black bear in backyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Now I know that I can trust myself’: 12-year-old boy fights off mama black bear in backyard<\/p>\n

\"Sophia<\/p>\n

In Washington, a child had to think on his feet when a bear suddenly charged at him in his backyard. <\/p>\n

“It was fight or die. I didn’t really have an option,” said 12-year-old Robin Westgate.<\/p>\n

Where Robin lives in suburban Bellingham, Washington, bears are common. Still, Robin’s encounter with the mama black bear was a surprise. <\/p>\n

“Me and the bear startle each other,” he recalled. <\/p>\n

Robin was grabbing a popcorn bowl from the backyard fruit orchard after a family dinner when he came face-to-face with the bear.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Robin had been taught what to do in this situation.<\/p>\n

“If you curl up or if you run away, you\u2019re probably going to die. If you fight, you have a better chance, so fight,” he said.<\/p>\n

Robin said the bear bit him on the wrist and he slammed his hand and thumb in her eye. He punched and screamed until his little sister, Riverley Westgate, heard him and ran for help. And when Robin’s dad came, the bear turned her sights on him.<\/p>\n

“Strange as it sounds, a feeling of relief to have her coming at me,” Noah Westgate, Robin’s father, said.<\/p>\n

The bear charged at Robin’s father, who said he went into “code red” mode in protecting his own cub.<\/p>\n

“She crunches into my hand right at the moment that I land the hardest punch of my life,” he recounted.<\/p>\n

After that, the bear fled. But she has since returned.<\/p>\n

While state wildlife workers have set a trap, she has yet to be caught.<\/p>\n

Officials say attacks like the one the Westgates experienced are rare, but human expansion into undeveloped areas has increased the chance of bear encounters, especially as the animals prepare for winter hibernation.<\/p>\n

The Westgates are equipping themselves with bear spray, but Robin says his backyard is just as safe as it ever was.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because I got attacked didn’t change anything about the overall danger from the bears,” he said. “The only thing that changed is that now I know that I can trust myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Now I know that I can trust myself’: 12-year-old boy fights off mama black bear in backyard In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[3648,300914,32322,249389,3485,1389,15124,71109,300915,111,139,300912,69,2874,300913,147,294077,58933,300916,2988,406],"class_list":["post-610539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal","tag-animal-encounter","tag-backyard","tag-bellingham","tag-black-bear","tag-conservation","tag-fight","tag-hibernation","tag-mama-bear","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-noah-westgate","tag-nz","tag-preservation","tag-robin-westgate","tag-science","tag-sknd","tag-suburban","tag-urban-sprawl","tag-washington","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}