AVON, Conn. (AP) — 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.
Workers at Taste by Spellbound within the city of Avon had been loading desserts right into a van for supply on Wednesday when the bear confirmed up. There are between 1,000 and 1,200 black bears dwelling in Connecticut, the state environmental company says, with sightings final 12 months in 158 of the state’s 169 cities and cities.
Bakery proprietor Miriam Stephens wrote in an Instagram post that she heard worker Maureen Williams “screaming bloody murder” and yelling that there was a bear within the storage.
Williams told TV station WTNH that she shouted to scare the bear off nevertheless it retreated and got here again 3 times.
Williams stated 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 facet of the enterprise to attempt to scare the bear, however then running away after it scares them.
The video reveals the bear dragging a container of cupcakes from the storage into the parking zone. Stephens stated the bear ate 60 cupcakes.
A baker lastly acquired the bear to go away by honking a automotive horn, Williams stated.
The four-footed thief was gone by the point police and officers from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection arrived.
No one was injured within the encounter — one in a sequence of troubling interactions between black bears and people in Connecticut.
A 74-year-old lady suffered bites to her arms and legs last month when she was attacked by a bear whereas strolling her canine in a Hartford suburb, the primary such assault this 12 months. There had been two assaults final 12 months, together with one in October the place a 10-year-old boy was mauled in a yard.
“The frequency and severity of bear-human interactions is increasing,” DEEP spokesperson Paul Copleman stated Friday.
Statistics compiled by the department present that there have been a document 67 reviews of bears coming into Connecticut properties in 2022. The earlier document was 45 in 2020.
