MANHATTAN, Mont. – A Montana woman found herself face-to-face with a bear after it entered her home.
In a video shared to Facebook, the bear appears to have broken through a screen door and lingered in the house, where the homeowners found it.
Kaytlin DiGiovanna, who shared the video, said it took four minutes to get the bear out of the house. The video shows DiGiovanna and her husband, who grabbed a gun after seeing the bear inside the house, shooing the bear out with firm shouts and movement.
DiGiovanna said the bear left the house and went out of sight before coming right back.
“When it returned it was huffing and clapping its jaws while continuing to walk toward us,” DiGiovanna said.
She said the bear did a small bluff charge and kept walking down the path closer to the house, “at which point we had to shoot it.”
After a supposed gunshot rings out in the video, it shows the bear lying on its side on the walkway to the house, next to a foldable camping chair.
“Not what you want to wake up to,” DiGiovanna said in the video.
She said they called Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and were told they did the right thing. The department came by hours later to retrieve the bear and wardens told DiGiovanna it probably weighed 300 pounds.
The bear was an adult female with no cubs, and it looked fat and healthy, the warden told DiGiovanna.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has several Bear Aware resources listed on its website. It often encourages residents in bear country to make sure food, scented items and other possible bear-attractants are stored indoors or in bear-resistant garbage cans.
It also often reminds people to never feed bears because it encourages the bear to continue dangerous interactions with humans.