Bear shot with pellet gun in Willits, cubs relocated
On Sept. 1, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) received a phone call close to noon from the Basalt Police Department about a mother bear and two cubs in a Willits neighborhood. The Aspen Times reports that the CPW officer advised Basalt police to haze the bears if possible.
A little over an hour later, CPW received another phone call from the Basalt police that the sow was now lying between two houses on Sopris Circle in Willits, bleeding from the mouth. When CPW arrived at the scene, the sow was dead. Her two cubs were eating crab apples across the street.
Local residents told CPW that the bears appeared healthy and were climbing trees in the neighborhood. CPW darted and captured the cubs for relocation and found that the sow had been shot with a pellet gun. On Sept. 3, at 5:30 p.m., CPW contacted the man who was suspected of shooting the sow. After some “reluctance,” the man admitted that he shot the sow with a pellet gun. He said he tried to “pop the sow in the butt” to get her to move on, and he was worried about kids in the neighborhood getting close to the sow with her cubs.
The man said he did not intend to kill the sow and that he was sorry that she died. When asked where the pellet gun was, the man said he threw it away. He is being charged with unlawfully killing a black bear accompanied by one or more cubs, as well as unlawfully failing to comply with the provisions of a license. On Sept. 15, the community held a memorial for the sow. The man is set to appear in court on Nov. 20 in Eagle County.
