A black bear mauled a 10-year-old playing in his grandparents’ backyard and tried to drag the boy away before it was shot and killed, Connecticut authorities said.
The 250-pound bear attacked the child Sunday morning in Morris, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Officials said that the boy was treated at a local hospital for injuries not life-threatening.
State police and wildlife officers responded to the call and took the animal out.
James Butler, the boy’s grandfather, said that his grandson was playing next to a trampoline and that a bear came out of the woods behind him home.
“I heard him yell ‘bear’ and when I looked up, I saw his leg in the bear’s mouth and the bear trying to drag him across the lawn,”The grandfather said it.
Butler used a wheelchair. He then rolled his seat toward the animal, and then he threw the metal bar at its head. The animal let go of the child and then grabbed the boy again, rolling him onto his back.
The grandfather stated that a neighbor ran up to him and started shouting and waving a pipe. The bear fled, and the grandfather and his grandson entered the house.
That was when the bear returned, scooting up a wheelchair ramp to look at them through a screen. “We thought he was coming through the screen,” Butler said.
The boy sustained a puncture wound on his thigh, biting his foot, and claw cuts to the back.
Black bears are increasingly drawn to an expanding human population in Connecticut as housing developments grow, state wildlife authorities said. Food and garbage are two of the most attractive things for black bears.