“You feel like a rag doll and there’s nothing you can do,” Vanessa Chaput said, adding, “I remember being thrown around.”
A brave mom who was attacked by a grizzly bear while jogging said her 2-year-old daughter was her inspiration to survive.
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vanessa Chaput, 24, of Yukon, Canada, told TODAY.com.
On June 30, Chaput was jogging through a paved trail in between Haines Junction and Pine Lake Campground in Ontario, Canada, with her German shepherd, Luna. Chaput said she is familiar with the trail, which runs alongside a highway and is near residential homes. It was 10:30 p.m, but the sun had recently set, so when Chaput rounded a corner, she clearly saw the trouble ahead.
Chaput was face-to-face with three bears.
I don’t like the fact that they killed bears they found in the area afterwards. She admitted she was in a bad place to be, and her dog might have triggered the initial attack (but did a good boy and helped scare off more). So bears that were being bears died because of this. I started reading this as a happy story of survival, but now I’m just glad she managed to live and the rest sucks.
Had a black bear wander in my dog door a few years back. The state biologist concerned with bears ordered it euthanized. I could tell she was heartbroken, but that’s procedure in such a case.
The contractor who works for the state set a trap in my yard for a week. Didn’t get him! Haven’t had a bear in the hood since.
I do get the reasoning behind such a policy to prevent an animal exposed to behavior from repeating it, but it sucks so much death came from a simple mistake. Especially since the bears weren’t even straying outside their normal area and just doing what you’d expect them to do.
Golly, bears where i live get into houses and trash all the time. To my knowledge none have been killed for it, it’s just accepted that people need to lock up their houses.
A bear also recently opened my car door, ate what it could find, and left with no damage to the car (other than a next level quantity of mud).
The differences in policies between cities are interesting.