TENNERTON, W.Va. — A 66-year-old Upshur County woman and her dogs were mauled by a bear early Friday morning shortly after she let her dogs out into her backyard.
According to state Division of Natural Resources Police Captain Doug Benson, Opal Gillespie let her dogs out into her fenced backyard in the Tennerton community at around 1:30 a.m. when a black bear, likely a yearling male, which had been feeding at the bird feeders on the home’s deck, mauled through the woman and her dogs to escape the yard.
“It’s quite unusual but when you encounter a bear and it’s trying to escape or vacate an area it’s going to push through, run through, slash through, or anything to get from one area to the next and that appears to be what happened here,” Benson told MetroNews.
Gillespie suffered several scratches and a more serious cut on her head. She had to have surgery but is expected to be okay, Benson said.
“Every indication is now, listening to the surgeon, she’s going to make a full recovery,” Benson said.
Gillespie was being treated at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Buckhannon. One of her two dogs was killed in the mauling.
Benson said the bear was on the deck for one reason only.
“Bears are attracted to one thing and that’s a food source and although a bird feeder doesn’t seem like it’s all that much an attractant for a bear, when you live in a neighborhood with several houses and they go from one house to the next feeding on bird feeders it ends up being enough food to keep them in the area,” Benson said.
The DNR is working to trap the bear. Investigators were able to pick up some key information about the animal on the trail-cam that was operating in the backyard of the residence.