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Black bear eating grass.
Most pet owners consider the animals they care for members of their family, and many of them will go to great lengths to protect them from harm. That includes one man in Connecticut who recently engaged in a 40-minute standoff with a bear that attacked a goat he cares for, which came to an end with the help of the dog that also stepped in to help him bring it to an end.
America is home to 40 states with a documented wild population of either brown, black, or (in the case of Alaska) polar bears, and that includes the entirety of New England. You probably won’t be shocked to learn that Maine leads the way in the region with an estimated 35,000 of the black variety that call it home, while Connecticut is near the bottom of the pack in the country with around 1,000 members of that species.
In 2024, all but 10 of the 159 cities and towns that comprise The Nutmeg State reported at least one bear sighting. There were only two attacks on humans that year, but there were a number of home invasions, incidents involving pets, and other so-called “conflicts” that were primarily concentrated in its northwest region.
That’s where the town of Bethlehem is located, and one man who lives there recently endured a fairly harrowing encounter involving a pet goat that was lucky to survive the ordeal.
A man in Connecticut was clawed by a bear after it attacked his pet goat during a standoff where his dog came to the rescue
According to WFSB, Joe Reda was at his home on a rural property in Bethlehem last week when “a squeal he had never heard before” sent him rushing to a shed where he keeps a couple of pet goats.
He grabbed a shovel that ended up coming in handy when he spotted what caused the commotion, as he encountered one of those goats, named Cole, in the jaws of a black bear that had made its way into the enclosure.
Reda said he attempted to use the shovel to prod the bear but was greeted with a claw that scratched his chest, and he spent 40 minutes staring it down as his wife fired a rifle in the air a couple of times in an unsuccessful attempt to scare it away. The gun may have failed to get the job done, but he said his bulldog, Heavy, played a key role in getting the bear to flee after deciding to get involved.
Cole was subsequently rushed to a veterinarian, and while the goat needed 80 stitches for the wounds it suffered, it was able to survive and is currently recovering in the same shed where the attack transpired.