Bear bashes way into Manitoba cottage, eats cake

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This article was published 18/07/2022 (257 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kat Devuono woke up to the sound of shattering glass at her Lester Beach cottage early Monday and immediately woke her mother and sister.

After looking out the window, she and her sister realized a black bear was trying to break into the old part of their cottage.

“We instantly started panicking about where all the kids were. Where it entered is typically where our kids would pull out the hide-a-bed and watch movies,” Devuono said. “Thankfully, last night it was really hot, and so we had everyone go to the main part of the cabin where the air conditioning was.”

Denvuono and her sister barricaded the door with an ottoman and chairs. While the six children sat in a barricaded bedroom telling stories, the rest of the family watched the bear as they called 911. The bear helped itself to a cake and a stash of granola bars in the pantry.

“We were put through to RCMP, the RCMP then connected us to conservation,” Devuono said. “That’s when a man answered the phone and just let us know that there was nobody working, that there was nobody on call, and nobody would be coming to help us.”

After calling 911 again, RCMP were sent from Selkirk. When they arrived, the bear had left.

“Thankfully, the bear had left about five minutes before they pulled up, but they too were like ‘we really weren’t sure what we were going to do,’” Devuono said.

A bear trap was placed near the cabin.

Devuono and her family have been tasked with monitoring the bear trap.

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The conservation officer told her they are short-staffed, Devuono said.

“I think it’s kind of crazy that our job is to monitor this bear trap,” Devuono said. “(The conservation officer) said that if there were other people working, that would be a job he would be doing… but he said he was one man taking over a huge region, and he cannot physically come and do it three times a day.”

They were told more needs to be done to ensure food is stored properly in cottage country to prevent bear break-ins, Devuono said.

“This is something we really need to work together on and take very seriously,” she said. “It was absolutely terrifying and really scary to know that no one really was coming to help, or the people coming to help were unsure of how they were going to help.”

cierra.bettens@freepress.mb.ca