{"id":25086,"date":"2019-06-09T10:27:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T16:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=367138"},"modified":"2019-06-09T10:27:28","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T16:27:28","slug":"aspen-tourist-bitten-by-bear-seriously-is-this-really-happening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/aspen-tourist-bitten-by-bear-seriously-is-this-really-happening\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen tourist bitten by bear: Seriously, is this really happening?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials wait at the lower Hunter Creek Valley trailhead (near the Hunter Creek apartments) on Monday for dog teams to track down a black bear that reportedly attacked a hiker earlier that day.<\/strong>
Jeremy Wallace \/ The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Aspen tourist bitten by a bear Memorial Day on the Hunter Creek Trail said in a recent TV interview that the animal didn\u2019t appear particularly bothered by her presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t strike me as very aggressive,\u201d said Janet Jansson, who spoke Thursday to Fox 31<\/a> in Denver. \u201cHe was a confused and frustrated bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jansson, who was visiting from Washington, was hiking with her husband about 10 minutes up the trail from the Hunter Creek Apartments when the attack occurred<\/a>, state wildlife officials have said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden down the path came a very large bear,\u201d she told the TV station in video interview. \u201cHe was a beautiful bear, very fluffy, chocolate-brown color, quite large.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, it didn\u2019t seem real. Like, \u2018Seriously, this is happening?\u2019 We both moved off the trail. We both had some training \u2014 do not run (or) try to get away \u2014 so we tried to get as far away as possible from the bear but we had a stream behind us. That limited how far we could back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bear then continued toward them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought he was going to walk past us, but then he randomly, almost as an afterthought, turned and pushed me over with his head and bit my thigh,\u201d said Jansson, who is a scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and got her masters at Colorado State University.<\/p>\n

While she said she doesn\u2019t remember being knocked down, she does remember yelling at the bear \u201cat the top of my lungs, \u2018No, go away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe shook his head and then rambled off,\u201d Jansson said.<\/p>\n

She said at first she didn\u2019t realize she\u2019d been bitten until she saw the blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was bleeding quite a bit,\u201d Jansson said. \u201cI had a fleece my husband soaked in a stream and it was cold. I laid down, elevated my leg. Nothing was broken. It was a bad puncture wound and bruise but nothing was broken. So I walked back down the trail and we called a taxi and went to the emergency room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jansson said she was \u201cpretty calm\u201d at the hospital until Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers told her they\u2019d have to kill the bear, \u201cat which point I broke down and cried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt breaks my heart, but I do (understand) because in this case the bear was not afraid,\u201d she said. \u201cI found out this is a path used by kids. It\u2019s close to the city. Thank goodness an old, gnarly lady, not a child (encountered the bear) \u2026 (it) could\u2019ve been disastrous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wildlife officers shot and killed the bear May 31<\/a> near the spot where Jansson was bitten. The bear\u2019s stomach was almost entirely full of birdseed<\/a>, they said later.<\/p>\n

That indicates it was feeding in people\u2019s backyards and likely had become used to humans, they said.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials wait at the lower Hunter Creek Valley trailhead (near the Hunter Creek apartments) on Monday for dog teams to track down a black bear that reportedly attacked a hiker earlier that day.Jeremy Wallace \/ The Aspen Times The Aspen tourist bitten by a bear Memorial Day on the Hunter Creek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 20:29:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}