National

Man sneaks into North Dakota zoo, gets bitten by bear

Associated Press
A brown bear walks to a sandbar to eat a salmon in Alaska in 2013. Another brown bear at the Minot, N.D., zoo, bit a man in the hand Saturday after he and a friend snuck in after hours. The man had put his arm through the bars of the bear’s cage to entice it closer.
A brown bear walks to a sandbar to eat a salmon in Alaska in 2013. Another brown bear at the Minot, N.D., zoo, bit a man in the hand Saturday after he and a friend snuck in after hours. The man had put his arm through the bars of the bear’s cage to entice it closer. Mark Thiessen Associated Press
MINOT, N.D.

A bear didn’t take too kindly to a man who sneaked into a North Dakota zoo about six hours after it closed.

According to police reports, a 21-year-old man and a 23-year-old man climbed the fence surrounding Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot shortly before midnight Saturday, WDAY reported. Both men were allegedly under the influence of alcohol.

The 21-year-old man tried to coax one of the zoo’s brown bears to come near him by sticking his right arm through the enclosure’s bars. A bear came over and bit his right hand.

The man went to the Trinity Hospital emergency room, which notified police they were treating someone for injuries sustained in a bear attack.

The 23-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of felony trespassing. The 21-year-old man wasn’t immediately arrested since he was getting medical treatment, but a warrant will be issued for him for trespassing.

The zoo was established in 1920 with a male bison from Montana. A June 2011 flood left parts of the zoo as much as 8 feet underwater and forced the zoo to evacuate all its animals. The facility didn’t reopen until two years later.

This story was originally published May 22, 2016 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Man sneaks into North Dakota zoo, gets bitten by bear."

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