Center Harbor couple details Sunday night bear attack

CENTER HARBOR — Fish and Game officers have set traps in an attempt to catch and kill a bear that is blamed for several troublesome incidents recently, including attacking a woman at her home on Sunday night.

With his wife, Jacqueline, 55, resting after a harrowing experience, Gerard Berghorn described on Monday morning the events that occurred the previous evening. Berghorn said the couple had lived on Woodridge Road, overlooking Waukewan Golf Course, for 13 years. "There have been bears here since we moved in – but never aggressive ones," he said. "If we see one, we just holler at them and they leave."

Lately, though, one adult bear had showed signs that it was becoming more comfortable around people, moseying into their backyard when the couple was on their poolside deck, showing no shyness until the Berghorns yelled at it.

Then, on Sunday night, the bear became even bolder. The ordeal began when the Berghorns' four year-old Shetland sheep dog, "Tassi," went out the doggie door onto the porch and began barking and running frantically. Jacqueline, to appease the dog, walked onto the porch at about 9:30 p.m. to see what "Tassi" was carrying on about. She walked about 10 feet into the night air until she came, as Gerard described, "eye-to-eye" with a bear that was on their porch, hiding behind a large planter, perhaps drawn to the deck by the scent of the Berghorns' freshly-used grill.

"That's when all hell broke loose," Gerard said.

Seeing the animal, estimated to weigh between 150 and 200 pounds, Jacqueline turned to run back into the house. The bear pursued her, shoving her from the back, sending Jacqueline tumbling and sliding into the side of the house and the sill of a sliding glass door.

"Tassi," who weighs in at about 30 pounds, wasn't impressed by the bear's size and continued to bark, growl and bite at the assailant's backside, distracting the animal from Jacqueline and annoying the bear enough that it ran, crashing through a section of fence around the deck and falling about eight feet to the ground on the house's side yard.

By this time, Gerard had heard the commotion and came out onto the deck, where he saw the bear attempting to climb back onto the deck. He returned into the home and came out onto the porch with his .357 magnum pistol. The bear had retreated into a shadow but Gerard knew it was nearby. "I could hear him growling and snorting but I couldn't see him, so I put two rounds into the ground to scare him off." It worked, he listened as the animal retreated through the woods.

Jacqueline suffered a bruised shoulder, a bumped head and a large welt on her hand, all injuries associated with her fall and crash into the house. Paramedics transported her to Lakes Region General Hospital for treatment. She was home by Monday morning. Gerard said local and state police, using night-vision goggles and high-powered rifles, combed the nearby woods in search of the animal but were unsuccessful.

Brad Morse, a Fish & Game conservation officer, said a trap would be set at the property and the bear would be euthanized when caught.

Morse said Sunday night's encounter was "very unusual, bears are usually shy." However, this bear had been regularly fed by previous residents of the neighborhood and had become accustomed to being around humans and eating their food. Now that those residents have moved out, the bear was looking for a new source of easy meals, Morse suspected, which had led to increasingly "brazen" behavior.

The Berghorns weren't the only family menaced by the bear. Last week, Morse said, a bear suspected to be the same one as visited the Berghorns attacked a dog, causing considerable damage. In another nearby incident, which also occurred on Sunday night, a bear broke into a chicken coop, damaging the structure and leading to the disappearance of six birds. Because of these incidents, all within a mile of the Berghorns, Morse said the bear will be destroyed rather than simply relocated.

Meredith and Center Harbor, said Morse, seem to have a "healthy" bear population. Based on anecdotal reports, he feels the local bear population has been increasing over recent years. With that in mind, he encouraged residents to be mindful with their properties to avoid close contact with the wild animals.

"Bears come in because they're drawn in," Morse said. Most bear trespassings are instigated by either bird feeders – which a bear can smell from a mile away, he said – or household garbage that is stored outside. Fish & Game recommends that residents take down bird feeders after April 1 and keep garbage containers secured and covered with a lid.

CAPTION for BEAR TASSI in AA:

This 30-pound Shetland sheep dog, "Tassi" ran off a full-grown black bear that had shoved her owner to the ground on Sunday evening. The woman, Jacqueline Berghorn of Center Harbor, suffered non-life threatening injuries. (Laconia Daily Sun photo/Adam Drapcho)

CAPTION for BEAR PORCH in AA:

A bear climbed onto a Center Harbor deck on Sunday evening and attacked a woman before crashing through a section of fencing and falling to the ground. The victim's husband used gunshots to scare the animal off. The section of fence the bear crashed through is visible in this image. (Laconia Daily Sun photo/Adam Drapcho)