A hungry black bear barged into the storage of a Connecticut bakery, scared a number of staff and helped itself to 60 cupcakes earlier than ambling away.
Employees at Style by Spellbound within the city of Avon have been loading muffins right into a van for supply on Wednesday when the bear confirmed up. There are 1,000 to 1,200 black bears residing in Connecticut, the state environmental company says, with sightings final yr in 158 of the state’s 169 cities and cities.
The bakery’s proprietor, Miriam Stephens, wrote in an Instagram put up that she heard worker Maureen Williams “screaming bloody homicide” and yelling that there was a bear within the storage.
Williams informed TV station WTNH that she shouted to scare the bear off however it retreated and got here again 3 times.
Williams mentioned the bear charged at her so she backed out of the storage and ran.
Surveillance video obtained by WTNH reveals bakery staff strolling across the aspect of the enterprise to attempt to scare the bear, however then working away after it scares them.
The video reveals the bear dragging a container of cupcakes from the storage into the parking zone. Stephens mentioned the bear ate 60 cupcakes.
A baker lastly received the bear to depart by honking a automotive horn, Williams mentioned.
The four-footed thief was gone by the point police and officers from the Connecticut Division of Power and Environmental Safety (Deep) arrived.
Nobody was injured within the encounter – one in a sequence of latest troubling interactions between black bears and people in Connecticut.
A 74-year-old girl suffered bites to her legs and arms final month when she was attacked by a bear whereas strolling her canine in a suburb of Hartford, the state capital – the primary such assault this yr. There have been two assaults final yr, together with one in October the place a 10-year-old boy was mauled in a again yard.
“The frequency and severity of bear-human interactions is growing,” Deep spokesperson Paul Copleman mentioned on Friday.
Statistics compiled by the division present there have been a report 67 reviews of bears coming into Connecticut properties in 2022. The earlier report was 45 in 2020.
