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(File photo)MOUNTAIN GREEN -- A Mountain Green couple lost one of its pet pygmy goats to a hungry bear, which was shot when it tried to attack a second goat.
Wendy Wardell was getting ready for bed Monday night when she heard something unusual.
"I heard this awful screaming sound that I've never heard from my goat. The little one, which is Gretel, was running around the backyard," Wardell said. "My husband got out of bed and looked out the bedroom window - which, you can see the goat pen from there -- and he yelled, ‘It's a bear.'"
Gretel had panicked once her companion, Cookie, had been carried away by the bear.
"The bear climbed up on the feed box, and was going into the pen to get the little goat, so my husband shot it," Wardell said. "It fell into the pen, busted the gate and ran."
Wardell says before he shot the bear, her husband had screamed and fired a warning shot in hopes of getting it to run away.
Wildlife Resource bloodhounds tried to track the bear's scent, but with no luck.
The bear has not been seen since the attack, but Wildlife Resources fears that it will die from its wound.
Wardell says bears rarely come after prey like her pets, but bears have been lacking food this summer. She'll replace the missing goat for the sake of the other goat but says that she still feels badly for the bear.
E-mail: psamore@ksl.com
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