BEARGLAR EATS HOMEOWNER’S ROTTING BODY!
Broke into house looking for food
A RAVENOUS bear ransacked a dead California woman’s home, made a meal of her corpse and disrupted a police investigation into her death!
Authorities believe a black bear prowling the remote High Sierras area broke into 71-year-old Patrice Miller’s Downieville home after she died and tore the place apart looking for chow — after being attracted by the scent of her decaying body.
“The bear caused damage to the front door, refrigerator and made a large mess inside the house,” says Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher, whose deputies made the grim discovery while conducting a welfare check after Patrice seemed to fall off the earth last month.
The lawman says the bruin “interfered” with the corpse, which experts say was just another source of protein as the critter tried to fatten up for winter hibernation.
“Right now, bears are all in hyperphagia, which is when they eat, eat, eat,” explains Ann Bryant of the Lake Tahoe wildlife rescue service Bear League. “They can’t stop eating. They eat 20 hours a day.”
And Miller’s decomposing body would be like ringing the dinner bell for the bold bruin.
“Bears have an incredible sense of smell,” notes Bryant. “A dead body would have smelled to a bear like food.”
Authorities don’t suspect foul play in Miller’s death, but the bear apparently returned to the property and had to be chased off by deputies “several times,” the sheriff says.
That’s sparked fears the critter has developed a dangerous taste for human flesh, something the Department of Fish and Wildlife is now investigating.
Although Bryant doesn’t see that threat being very likely, she advises people to take sensible precautions.
“If you are in bear country, don’t be afraid,” says
Bryant. “Be smart, and close and lock your accessible doors and windows.”