'I Didn't Want To Do This'
John Aaron Enright was still visibly distraught when we talked with him the night after the encounter with the bear.
"Well it had breath and a heartbeat," he said. "(It) deserved to live. I didn't want to do this."
Enright says that at about 9 p.m. Monday he heard what he thought was his dog at his back door. He opened the door and walked away only to notice his dog was already in the house.
"That's when I stopped and turned around slowly, it stands up," he said of the bear standing in the open doorway. "It kind of starts snorting and growling at me."
Enright says the bear was aggressive and would not back away from the door. Keeping his eyes on the bear he reached to find his shotgun.
"Then it turned around to come back and I shot it on the turn . And then it bolted up about 25 feet (running away) and really...really had a problem," he said while choking back tears as he talked about the obvious injuries he'd inflicted on the bear.
Enright's hands were still shaking when he handed me the 10-gauge shotgun shell left from the single shot he fired. He says the shell landed on his kitchen floor: evidence he hopes that will help further convince people that he was acting in self-defense from inside his own home.
Wildlife Biologist Rocky Spencer, who has extensive experience with bears in that same High Point neighborhood, was called to track the injured bear. His dog followed the blood trail and tracked the bear about 100 yards into the woods. Spencer could see that the animal was seriously wounded and fired one more shotgun blast to end its ordeal.
Wildlife officers say bear encounters are normal this time of year throughout western Washington and in and around the small High Point neighborhood as the animals emerge hungry from hibernation. Locals say they try to co-exist with them as best they can.
Monday's bear encounter is in the same neighborhood we visited almost exactly one year ago. Wildlife officers trapped an adult nuisance bear, tagged it and then released it. But as they did they used blanks and other noise-makers to scare the animal so much it might think twice about coming back.
As for this latest bear Aaron wishes it had learned the same lesson so that he wouldn't have been forced to fire that shot.
"In my honest opinion I don't think I had any other feasible option," he said.
"It was certainly shot next to his home and you know if it's a situation where he feels his property or his life or his pets or something are threatened he's perfectly authorized to do that," said Spencer. "We just want to make sure that was the right circumstances."