Bear's demise lamented in hues and cries

A day after the Colorado Division of Wildlife put down a bear that reportedly chased a pregnant woman, public sentiment appeared to be backing the bear, with many people saying officials had over-active trigger fingers.

"I am both disgusted and saddened by the turn of events in yesterday's bear incident," Barb Masciarelli wrote in an e-mail. "It seems to me to be a rather severe overreaction to the situation."

Her comments were among nearly 100 that came in via e-mails and comment posts to Gazette.com on Friday about an incident that's making headlines nationwide.

But Masciarelli's sympathies for the bear were compounded by a personal connection. She says she knew the bear.

After allegedly chasing 26-year-old Ashley Swendsen, the bear showed up in the yard of Masciarelli's Erindale Heights home, nearly a mile from the creek.

Masciarelli said the bear, which she said she recognized because it had visited her home many times during the past several years looking for food, ate birdseed and rolled around on the grass.

"I find the entire incident to be quite sad, as the bear in Cottonwood Creek was obviously on his way to find food in the Erindale area when it encountered the woman on the trail," Masciarelli wrote. "I doubt quite seriously that the bear chased the woman or even followed her. ... Animals remember where they find food."

The incident began around noon Thursday when Swendsen was walking down a trail next to Cottonwood Creek, just east of Interstate 25 and south of Woodmen Road.

Swendsen later told police and wildlife officers she saw a bear in the creek and walked away, only to see the bear begin to follow her. She began to jog or run - the reports vary - but the bear quickly gained on her, coming within 10 feet.

Swendsen scrambled up an embankment onto Vincent Drive, where she was struck but not injured by a slow-moving car driven by an elderly woman, who checked to make sure she was OK before driving off. On Friday, police reported they had located the driver of the car and are investigating whether charges should be filed against her.

Michael Seraphin of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said the bear was quickly tracked to the yard on Rock Ridge Court.

He said officers did not euthanize the bear solely on Swendsen's report that the bear had chased her. Rather, he said, that decision was based on the bear's reaction - or rather lack of reaction - when approached.

He said Colorado wildlife officers have tranquilized hundreds if not thousands of bears, and the typical response of a bear when approached is either to run or, more often, scale a tree.

"This bear made absolutely no attempt to do that," Seraphin said. "It looked at the guy and went back to eating bird seed that had fallen on the ground. That was the big tip off. This bear  was not demonstrating any fear of three cops and three wildlife officers. The officer with the tranquilizer gun got within 10 yards, and it was just oblivious."

Seraphin said the wildlife officer wrote later in his report that this was the first bear he'd ever encountered that let that many humans get close to it "without even acting nervous in our presence."

Seraphin said the division's policy is normally to tranquilize, tag and transport a bear to a more remote area after a first incident with humans and then euthanize it if gets in trouble again. But he said because this bear showed no fear of humans, that was not an option.

He said that despite some of the comments posted at Gazette.com that suggested otherwise, the Division of Wildlife does not frequently euthanize bears nor does it relish when it is forced to do so.

He said that in 2008, there were more than 800 calls from residents of El Paso and Teller counties reporting bear sightings or problems.

During the same year, eight bears were put down in the two counties - and that includes those killed by ranchers and U.S. Department of Agriculture agents responding to complaints from ranchers about bears harassing or killing their livestock.

During the same year in the two counties, 15 bears were captured and relocated.