Woman, 65, is attacked by 300-pound bear, fights back and survives

One minute, Emily Miles was walking her dogs in a Santa Barbara County avocado grove, the next, a hulking 300-pound black bear was sinking its teeth into her left thigh after tackling her to the ground.

“Looking at him, I knew he could kill me in an instant,” Miles, 65, said in an interview aired by KTLA.

But the Carpinteria woman wasn’t going to go without a fight. She started screaming and kicking the 6-foot-tall bear until she was able to get away.

In addition to the bite, Miles suffered a cracked rib and deep claw marks on her back during Monday’s attack.

Traps have since been set in the area, but California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials are not actively pursuing the bear with tracking dogs or other methods, department spokeswoman Janice Mackey said.

Mackey said the department evaluates every incident on a case-by-case basis. Setting traps, she said, was the method they decided to take given the rugged terrain.

Bear saliva and other physical evidence were gathered from Miles’ wounds and taken to the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s forensic lab to be compared with any ursine that is captured, she added.

If there’s a match, the bear will be “humanely euthanized,” Miles said.

As an avocado farmer, Miles said she had seen bears before -- they enjoy the high-fat fruit. But she had never encountered an aggressive bear before Monday’s attack.

Still, Miles said she doesn’t want state game wardens to hurt or kill it.

That decision, though, isn’t up to her.

“We just can’t have a bear attacking people,” Mackey said.

She added that the bear was likely tracking Miles’ dogs just before it attacked her.

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