Bear helps himself to 60 cupcakes from a Connecticut bakery, scaring the employees
AVON, Conn. (AP) — A hungry black bear barged into the garage of a Connecticut bakery, startling several employees and grabbing 60 cupcakes before sauntering away.
Workers from Taste by Spellbound in the town of Avon were loading cakes into a van for delivery on Wednesday when the bear appeared. According to the state environmental agency, there are between 1,000 and 1,200 black bears living in Connecticut. Last year, they were spotted in 158 of the state’s 169 cities.
Bakery owner Miriam Stephens wrote in an Instagram post that she heard employee Maureen Williams yell “fucking murder” and yell that there was a bear in the garage.
Williams told TV station WTNH that she screamed to scare the bear away, but he retreated and came back three times.
Williams said the bear charged at her, so she backed out of the garage and ran.
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Surveillance video obtained by WTNH shows bakery workers running around the store to try to scare the bear, but then run away after it startles them.
The video shows the bear dragging a container of cupcakes from the garage to the parking lot. Stephens said the bear ate 60 cupcakes.
A baker eventually got the bear to walk by sounding a car’s horn, Williams said.
The four-footed thief was gone when police and officials from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection arrived.
No one was hurt in the encounter — one of several troubling interactions between black bears and people in Connecticut.
A 74-year-old woman suffered bites on arms and legs last month When she was attacked by a bear while walking her dog in suburban Hartford, it was the first attack of its kind this year. There were two attacks last year, including one in October in which a 10 year old boy was abused in a backyard.
“The frequency and severity of interactions between bears and humans is increasing,” DEEP spokesman Paul Copleman said Friday.
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