BILLINGS — Two Wyoming women escaped unharmed after a black bear attacked their tents in the Big Horn Mountains while they were still inside.
Friends Maggie Bassett and Shonna Dehl were on a camping trip when the bear began tearing into their tents while they were asleep on Sunday night.
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"It was so scary," Bassett said.
Basset said it jolted them and their four dogs awake and that both women were shocked at the bear's behavior.
"It wanted in the tents," Dehl said. "That's all it wanted. It didn't matter what we did."
Dehl and Bassett proceeded to yell and scream at the bear, even firing gunshots in its direction in an effort to scare it away. None of those efforts worked.
"It was not scared at all," Bassett said Wednesday afternoon in an online web call. "It didn't even blink. It just kind of circled around and came back at me from a different angle."
"It was circling us," Dehl said. "It felt like it was circling our campground."
Eventually, the bear scattered away after more gunshots were fired. Then, the two women fled to their vehicle, hiding out for a couple of hours and honking their horn to keep the bear away.
"We were in there for at least an hour," Dehl said. "Just scared and shaking."
Eventually, the two drove away unharmed and made their way to Dehl's family cabin a few hours away.
When they returned the next day, they found their tents collapsed and torn to shreds. Wyoming Game and Fish responded and told the two women they plan to trap the bear and relocate it.
Both Bassett and Dehl said it was a frightening ordeal, especially because they followed all bear-aware protocol, including using bear containers.
"I will never forget that sound of my tent being ripped open," Bassett said.
Chrissy Webb with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has not been involved in the investigation but said a bear's memory can bring it back to places where it has encountered unnatural foods before.
"You know it's not unreasonable for a bear to return to a site where they've gotten food in the past," Webb said. "When bears start accessing those unnatural human-based food is when we start to see bears that can be potentially dangerous because, you know, they've got conditioned by this food."
Webb said there is no way to know if that is what happened in this case, but staying bear aware is crucial for both campers and the animals.
"It's safer for you to store things properly, and it's better for the bear's sake if they're not able to access those human foods," Webb said.
For Bassett and Dehl, it's an experience that has changed the way the two plan to go camping in the future.
"I don't see myself sleeping in a tent anytime soon, maybe never," Bassett said.
"Yeah, we're going to need four walls," Dehl said.
