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 overactive 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 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 reportedly 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.”
Michael Seraphin of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said officers did not euthanize the bear solely on Swendsen’s report. Rather, he said, it was because the bear showed no fear of humans, even when confronted by three cops and three wildlife officers.
