The home of Donna Munson. The DOW says she used a fence to protect herself as she fed bears.
Posted on 08/11/2009 8:37:48 AM PDT by null and void
OURAY, Colo. -- An autopsy showed a 74-year-old Ouray County woman whose body was found being eaten by a bear was attacked and killed by that same bear after she attempted to help a smaller bear that had been hurt in a fight.
The son-in-law of Donna Munson told 7NEWS that Munson was trying to help a smaller bear that had gotten into a fight with an older bear on Aug 7. The smaller bear suffered broken teeth in the brawl, Munson told her family.
Munson told her brother by telephone that she was putting out hard-boiled eggs and milk for the younger bear to eat, said the victim's son-in-law, Bruce Milne.
Munson told her brother Thursday night that the older bear was back and said, "I'm going to chase it off with a broom."
According to the county coroner, Munson was grabbed by the bear and it slashed her head and neck with such penetrating force that Munson would have bled out in 90 seconds.
Sheriff's investigators said that the bear "clubbed" her through the wire fence that she had built around her porch, rendering her unconscious. It then grabbed her, pulled her underneath the fence to the back yard and then slashed her to death, the sheriff's office said.
Later that day, a witness found a large bear feeding on Munson's body as it lay outside her home.
When deputies arrived to investigate the report of a mauling on Friday, they were approached by a 250-pound bear, which was actively sniffing the body. A deputy with the Ouray Sheriff's Office fired six rounds and killed the bear. A necropsy on that bear showed that it neither attacked nor fed on Munson.
On Saturday about 3 a.m., a second bear was acting aggressively towards investigators who were still at the house. A DOW investigator shot and killed that bear -- a 400-pound male bear.
A necropsy on that second bear revealed human tissue as well as remnants of a shirt that Munson was wearing, according to the Ouray Sherrif's Office.
The home of Donna Munson. The DOW says she used a fence to protect herself as she fed bears.
Officials said the DOW had known for years that Munson routinely fed bears and would not stop, even after repeated requests from the DOW.
The remote nature of her home made observing possible wildlife violations impossible, the DOW said. Last year, the DOW sent a written notice to Munson and renters at her home warning of the dangers of feeding bears.
"It got to the point where she never opened her door for us, allowed us on her property or answered her phone," said DOW spokesman Tyler Baskfield. "Our officers went above and beyond, in terms of gaining her cooperation."
Munson had constructed a metal fence that covered her porch so that she could feed bears through the fence, wildlife officials said.
There have been only two fatal bear attacks in Colorado in the past 100 years. The first was in Grand County in 1971, when a man was killed. The second incident was Aug. 10, 1993, in Fremont County when a 24-year-old man was killed.
The family said Munson moved from southern California with her former husband, Jack, and they built the three-story log house outside of Ouray in 1978.
The coroner said her official cause of death was multiple trauma due to a bear attack. The manner of death was ruled to be accidental.
The lady was a fool, and she was endangering others by training bears to look for food at people's houses.
There's no shortage of evidence for this.... "Feeding the bears" is a big problem in places where people and nature come together, and that includes places like Ouray.
Your wild he-man chest thumping aside, you appear to be as big a fool as this dead lady.
I read someplace that Lewis & Clark carried "state of the art" Air Rifles.
I read another account a while back of a journalist who went up to Alaska to write a story about life up there.
He ended up walking back to town, and came across two dirt poor looking urchins who were playing with some cans they had put rocks in, kicking them up the trail, playing catch back and forth with them, throwing them as high as they could in the air and catching them.
The journalist was really impressed by this, and told the kids that down where he lives, kids have more money and spend their days playing video games and such, but up here, even though they didn’t have money, they found the humble means to have a good time with no money, even if it mean making toys out of cans and rocks, and he thought that was special.
The two kids looked at him as if he were an idiot, and one of them said “What do you mean? These are our “bear cans” to make noise so we don’t surprise the bears. My mom and dad would give me a whipping if I didn’t have it! Where’s yours? Don’t you have one?”
The guy said no...then asked if he could borrow one of theirs, and the kids both said “No way!”
Hehehe...I love that!
I think I'd have to vote for 'suicide'.
If it were Oregon, you would have to credit the bear with an "assist"...
Question is... Can the bear bill Medicare?
I think I’ve seen that painting too.
Yeah, there was a lot of soiled buckskin around the campfire that night, I’m betting.
I’d love to have seen a pre westward expansion grizzly, before all of the real “trophy” animals were killed off.(from a distance and with binoculars of course.)
A broomhandle might be OK, but I’d prefer more than 9mm parabellum.
LOL!
I wouldn’t have admitted that if I were the journalist.
“...and mama bear just ain’t reasonable.”
In this case the carnivirous bear was a male. Don’t know if related to smaller bear.
...she really munsoned that one.
I read and my comments are still the same.
Ouray county ——As of the census[6] of 2000, there were 3,742 people, 1,576 households, and 1,123 families residing in the county. The population density was 7 people per square mile
Bwahahahahaha
Before Disney most people understood the difference between animals and humans;I wonder if Disney was aware of the damage he was doing?
“Hold my strawberry daiquiri.”
I think you forgot the sarcasm alert.
Lewis had an air rifle. They used it often to dazzle the Indians. From a website...
“Lewis’s air gun was a remarkable property of the expedition. Widespread agreement is that it was a Girandoni-style air rifle, originally designed and built in Europe for the Austrian army. The Girandoni was .46 caliber, had a magazine for 20 shots, and was a repeater. Lewis used it to impress Indians in council. It was smokeless, and could fire 20 shots in one minute. The Indians were impressed. The air gun was the most unusual piece of equipment on the expedition. Air guns of that period and caliber are not silent and make a very loud crack.”
Is that a strawberry daiquiri, Dick?
No, it’s a hickory daiquiri, Doc...
Except she got both bears killed. That is the shame.
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