NISSWA, Minn. — A black bear mauled a 65-year-old woman at a vacation home on Gull Lake, leaving deep claw wounds on a shoulder and arm. She was treated at a Brainerd hospital emergency room and was determined not to be in a life-threatening medical situation. A doctor told her the pain and bruising would be with her a few days and the scarring much longer. The woman, who asked sheriff’s deputies not to release her name, said she had let dog Zeus out around midnight and shouted at what she first thought was a raccoon to scoot. It was no raccoon. Suddenly in defensive mode, the bear attacked. She described the animal as medium size and cinnamon. “My shirt had blood on it, but nothing gushing,” she told a KSTP interviewer. “I did not get bitten. It was just a what? A scratch.” She has no ill will towards the bear. The response, she said, was natural for a bear when a dog suddenly appears on its territory. The woman, who has vacationed for years on Gull Lake, said she never had a bear encounter before. Since the state Natural Resources Department began tracking encounters in 1987, there have been only 10 attacks leading to serious injuries. Statewide that averages one every 2-1/2 years.
Bear claw marks. Victim needed stitches. .Image: Cass County Sheriff