COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) put down a bear last week after responding to a call about a "bear attack" involving two boys in Colorado Springs.
According to a release from the agency, CPW officers responded to the call for help on Wednesday evening. They said it was described as a "bear attack with injuries involving two boys."
The agency said they arrived to find an aggressive female bear and said it had charged twice at two boys, ages 12 and 13. They said one of the boys was injured after running into a tree branch.
>The video above is from another bear incident involving CPW.
Both CPW officers and Colorado Springs police officers searched the open space to find the bear, which they estimated to be 150 pounds. They also searched for her two cubs, which they say each weighed about 50 pounds.
When they found the mother bear, CPW said she was aggressive toward the officer, who then euthanized her.
"There was no choice but to put it down after it repeatedly charged people," said Tim Kroening, CPW wildlife manager for the Pikes Peak area, in the agency's release.
CPW said the team searched the area for hours to find the cubs, which they located with the help of a heat-sensing drone. The cubs were chased up a tree and tranquilized. The agency said the cubs were old enough and large enough to survive on their own.
CPW said their officers brought the cubs to the CPW Southeast Region office, where they were tagged for release and given a drug to reverse the tranquilizer, but one of the cubs never woke up.
The surviving cub was released Friday morning in a remote mountain location, the agency said.
“The death of the cub was a sad reminder of why CPW is reluctant to tranquilize wildlife," Kroening said in the release. "There are many risks involved when tranquilizing wildlife.”
9NEWS has reached out to CPW to determine how many bears have been euthanized in the past year for aggressive incidents. We're waiting to hear back.
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