{"id":657252,"date":"2026-05-21T22:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/657252\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T22:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T22:13:10","slug":"black-mountain-woman-shares-story-after-bear-breaks-into-her-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/657252\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Mountain woman shares story after bear breaks into her home"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 A Black Mountain woman is sharing her story after coming face to face with a black bear inside her home.<\/p>\n

Clay Milton said she was home alone a few weeks ago when she heard what sounded like someone had broken in.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came down to the base of the landing to look and see and there was the bear right at the bottom of the stairs,\u201d said Lisa Milton, a Black Mountain resident who was out of town when her daughter, Clay, had the bear encounter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bear did not respond. It continued to get onto the sofa, and I was screaming at it full force being like, ‘get out of the house,’\u201d Clay Milton said.<\/p>\n

6 BEARS, INCLUDING 2 CUBS, EUTHANIZED AFTER HOME BREAK-INS IN HAW CREEK, BLACK MOUNTAIN<\/a><\/p>\n

After lots of shouting, Milton managed to get the bear back outside. But it didn\u2019t end there. The bear was standing in her doorway on its hind legs trying to push the door back open as Milton worked to get it shut.<\/p>\n

She explained that after three hard tries, she was finally able to get the door fully shut and latch the dead bolt. Milton added that a closed door was still not enough of a deterrent to get the bear further away from her home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked out the window, and the bear was aggressively trying to get through the door, so I had to wait until it was backed up on the porch to open the door and scream at it to go away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

SMOKIES’ RECENT ‘AGGRESSIVE’ BEAR ENCOUNTERS WITH HUMANS PROMPT TRAIL CLOSURES<\/a><\/p>\n

Clay Milton is not the only one with recent bear break-ins. According to the North Carolina Wildlife officials, there have been a few break-ins by bears in Black Mountain and also Haw Creek. Wildlife officials also report that six black bears, including two yearlings, were euthanized after these separate home break-ins.<\/p>\n

Lisa Milton is thankful her daughter was able to eventually get the bear out of their house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could easily have come home and found our child dead in the house, and I could not live with that, and I don’t want anyone else to have to do that,\u201d Milton\u2019s mom said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why on Wednesday, the town of Black Mountain held a public meeting open to all residents to try and come up with solutions so that residents and bears can co-exist peacefully. <\/p>\n

Residents are even considering whether to impose possible penalties for anyone caught feeding bears. Black Mountain Mayor Michael Sobol suggested a fine of up to $1,000 for feeding bears. So far, it\u2019s not clear exactly when a decision will be finalized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. (WLOS) \u2014 A Black Mountain woman is sharing her story after coming face to face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-657252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}