Bear helps itself to a meal in couple’s kitchen

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB/Gray News) - A Connecticut couple shared video after they were surprised to find a black bear helping itself to a meal in their kitchen.

Christine Vannie said she and her husband, Bill Priest, had just left their front yard to go to the backyard Sunday when Priest went inside to grab a drink. They had outdoor music playing, so they didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.

However, Priest found a bear eating in their kitchen.

“It took some convincing to get him to leave,” Vannie wrote on social media. “I share this because most bears are shy and this one was not.”

.Just last week, Priest told WFSB he walked outside to find a bear going through the fridge in his garage.

“I was mad. I was just really mad because I knew it was a lot of work for me,” he said.

He knew that wouldn’t be the last bear sighting at his home, but he never expected the next one would be in his kitchen.

“I came in through that door, and I got to the doorway and he was right there. When he saw me, he ran over there,” Priest said. “He did startle me. That was probably the one time I was scared.”

That’s when he grabbed a chair to put it in between him and the bear.

Priest noticed the bear really made himself comfortable, eating an entire bag of marshmallows and other snacks.

“He had everything on the floor in there eating,” he said.

He was able to get the bear out through the front door, but not even 24 hours later, the bear was back. He said the bear ripped the screen from a door, and when it couldn’t get in through the front, it made an attempt at their back door.

“Right when I got here, he was coming up onto the deck, and he came up to the door and tried to push it open,” Priest said. “We’ve been having bears for years, but this is the first time they’ve ever done something that’s damaging to anything.”

Vannie said she contacted the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, who dropped off a trap. The box inside the trap is filled with leftover donuts from Dunkin’. When the bear pulls at the trap, the door will slam shut and lock it in.

The department is going to try to catch the bear, sedate it, figure out its age and tag it. They’ll let it go right there and use hazing techniques to scare the bear away from the house.

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