by Jackie Kent, KOMO News reporter, and KOMO News StaffFriday, August 5th 2022
<img alt="Photo: Melissa Grant, with permission
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NORTH BEND, Wash. — Multiple bears in Western Washington have been euthanized in recent days amid an increase in bear sightings, including four bears in North Bend that were put to sleep.
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said a mother bear and her three cubs were getting too comfortable around people, with one of them breaking into a home to find a snack.
“I know for a fact there were at least five (bears) that we’d see regularly,” said Melissa Grant who lives in the North Bend area. “Now there’s one.”
Grant is no stranger to bear sightings in her own backyard, evident by the broken railing and plenty of home surveillance footage.
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She said she could often recognize one black bear marked with a yellow ear tag.
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Video: Melissa Grant, with permission
She would “get into trash, get into bird feeders,” Grant said. “But in the last month or so since she had the three cubs, it’s escalated.”.
State officials said the mama bear had been captured, tagged and released before, but she and her cubs had recently become too comfortable being around people.
“People put their trash out too early, the bears come (and) eat the trash,” Grant said. “This one started escalating, started breaking into people’s homes.”
One anonymous neighbor captured the bears on a backyard picnic table. It’s the same home where one bear reportedly climbed through a window to eat a snack.
Then on Wednesday, the mother bear got stuck in a parked van that had food inside.
“We had to drill a hole into the vehicle and we had to dart her at that time,” Capt. Jennifer Maurstad of the wildlife agency said, adding that the decision was made to euthanize the mama bear and her cubs because of their history of foraging around. “We also try to take into account the most important thing is public safety, as well.”
In a separate incident in Whatcom County, a black bear was put down Wednesday after attacking a jogger.
The man who was attacked was treated at the hospital for injuries to his hands and feet.
“He was able to fight and protect himself and eventually spooked the bear off,” Maurstad said.
Grant believes people can help keep themselves and the bears safe by securing food, and her neighborhood is even looking at getting locked trash cans.
“The bear got into the van but it wasn’t (my neighbor’s) fault,” Grant said. “It was all of our fault for habituating this bear.”
Officials say they are on target for their usual number of bear sightings a year, about 1,000 from King County up to Canada.
Until Wednesday, the last bear attack in Washington state was in 2015.
Exposing the Big Game 
Reblogged this on Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting Blog.
So depressing…..