A 5-year-old girl was hospitalized Sunday with serious injuries in Grand Junction after a bear attack outside her home, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said.
CPW officers killed the bear overnight, spokesman Mike Parros said Monday in a news release.
A spokeswoman for St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction, Teri Cavanagh, said Monday that doctors expected her girl to “mend very well.”
Pediatric surgeon Charles Breaux Jr. said the bear apparently bit the girl on her back side, but she didn’t suffer fractures or brain or organ injuries, according to The Associated Press. She received dozens of internal and external stitches, Breaux said.
Neither the hospital nor CPW released or confirmed the names of the girl or family.
The attack took place in East Orchard Mesa above the Colorado River corridor.
The girl’s mother told CPW officers she heard screaming about 2:30 a.m., Sunday, and when she went outside, she saw a black bear dragging her daughter. She said the bear dropped the girl after she began screaming at the animal, CPW said. The girl had gone outside to investigate noises related to her dog, her mother said.
CPW officers tracked the bear overnight Sunday with the aid of federal wildlife services personnel.
CPW set three traps in the area and said they saw the bear walking to a residence a half-mile away from the scene of the attack and killed it before it entered a trap.
Wildlife officers are confident the bear is the one that attacked the girl.
“The necropsy, along with DNA results will provide the confirmation, but we are confident we have the right bear,” said Area Wildlife Manager Kirk Oldham. “However, we will leave all three traps in place for the time being out of an abundance of caution.”
CPW plans to transport the carcass to the agency’s Wildlife Health Lab in Fort Collins for a necropsy, Parros said.
CPW and USDA personnel plan to search the area for additional bears, he added.
