The unbearable lightness of being… nibbled by a bear

DENVER: A resident of a Colorado mountain town woke from a nap on his deck to find a black bear nibbling his ankle, but later rejected a request by wildlife officials to put a trap on his property, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Peter Rizzuto, 77, told The Aspen Times he thought at first the creature was a large dog. He said last week’s encounter was very brief, and the skin on his ankle was not broken.

Rizzuto contacted the Col- orado Parks and Wildlife department the following day, but then declined to place a bear trap in his backyard in the ski resort of Snowmass, near Aspen.

A parks and wildlife spokesman, Mike Porras, told the newspaper that the bear had not returned since last Wednesday’s incident, but it was likely that it would.

“If it is walking up to humans and doing this, it would not be a big surprise if it did it again,” Porras said.

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