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An Alaskan woman had the fear of her life using an outhouse in the backcountry and was attacked by a bear from below.
“I went out and sat on the toilet and immediately something bit my butt as I sat down,” Shannon Stevens told The Associated Press. “I jumped up and screamed when it happened.”
Stevens, his brother Erik, and his girlfriend had taken snowmobiles into the wild on February 13 to stay at his yurt, located about 20 miles northwest of Haines in southeast Alaska.
Her brother heard the screams and went to the outhouse, about 150 feet (45.72 meters) from the yurt. There he found Shannon tending to his wound. They thought at first that she had been bitten by a squirrel or a mink, or something small.
Erik had brought his headlamp with him to see what it was.
“I opened the toilet seat and there’s just a bear face right there at the toilet seat, looking right through the hole, right at me,” he said.
“I just closed the lid as quickly as possible. I said, “There’s a bear over there, we have to get out of here now,” he said. “And we got back to the yurt as quickly as possible.”
Once safe inside, they treated Shannon with a first aid kit. They determined it wasn’t that bad, but they would head to Haines if it got worse.
“He was bleeding, but it wasn’t a big deal,” Shannon said.
The next morning they found bear tracks all over the property, but the bear had left the area. “You could see them through the snow, approaching the side of the outhouse,” she said.
They believe the bear entered the outhouse through an opening at the bottom of the back door.
“I think it’s probably not that bad of a little den in the winter,” Shannon said.
Alaska Department wildlife management biologist Carl Koch suspects it was a black bear based on photos of the tracks he saw and the fact that a living neighbor about half a mile away sent him a photo of a black bear on his property days later.
This owner yelled at the bear, but he didn’t react. He also didn’t approach her but minded his own business, as if he was in walking hibernation mode.
Even though it’s winter, Koch said they get calls all year round about the bear release.
And 2020 was a banner year for general bear problems in the Haines area.
The reasons for this, he said, could include the fact that it was a bad year of salmon recovery combined with a poor berry harvest. “It is also possible that a bear may not be able to put on enough fat when it goes into the den, that it may be outside more often or earlier,” he said.
Koch suspects Shannon’s injury was caused by the bear hitting her with a paw rather than being bitten. Either way, the location could be a first.
“As for getting run over on your butt when you’re sitting in the winter, she might be the only person on Earth that’s happened to, as far as I know,” Koch said.
Regardless of the season, Erik says he’ll carry bear spray with him all the time when he goes to the backcountry, and Shannon plans to change a behavior as well.
“I’ll just better take a look inside the toilet before I sit down, that’s for sure,” she said.
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