Mother bear and cubs put down after near-fatal attack on Mariposa County man

On Sept. 22, Larry Yepez celebrated his 67th birthday. Friends and family from around the country called to congratulate him; it was a milestone he nearly didn’t reach.

Yepez was seriously wounded when a 200-pound black bear attacked him in the early morning hours of Aug. 13. He drove himself – while bleeding from wounds that almost disemboweled him – 9.4 miles to the nearest hospital in Mariposa, where doctors closed him up in time.

The bear and her cubs were eventually trapped and euthanized by California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials. They were among six bears that were trapped in the hunt for Yepez’s attacker – and all but one were killed.

On Thursday, Yepez reflected on the last six weeks.

“When things like this happen, the colors are brighter,” he said. “The food tastes better. The air smells fresher.”

Yepez said he’s been healing well since the attack. The 22 massive stitches used to close a bite on his face and claw slashes to his body have been removed. His dozen or so open wounds have scarred.

“They (the scars) are my badge of courage now,” Yepez said with exuberance. “I am part of the bear clan.”

Yepez is accustomed to life-threatening battles. A U.S. Marine, he was shot twice and hit by shrapnel during a tour in Vietnam. He also spent 25 years battling fires with the U.S. Forest Service before retiring in 2002.

“You never hear of a black bear attacking a person,” he said. “It’s so rare that I am still in disbelief over it, but I realize it was just one of those freak accidents.”

State Fish and Wildlife officials investigated the attack and initiated a search for the bear.

Frank Milazzo, Fish and Wildlife warden for Mariposa County, said that six bears were trapped during the search for Yepez’s attacker.

The first, a male, was killed because he had been breaking into occupied buildings, Milazzo said. The second had not caused problems, but her paw was injured so badly by the trap that she couldn’t survive in the wild. She was also euthanized.

Another female was trapped and released once the DNA evidence exonerated her.

Milazzo said Yepez’s attacker, a female, was trapped along with her two 1-year-old cubs. DNA evidence collected from near Yepez’s home in Midpines confirmed that she was the attacker, and she was euthanized.

Her cubs, Milazzo said, had to be killed because they were too young to survive without their mother. Even if they could survive, she had been teaching them bad habits – breaking into buildings and homes – that are grounds for euthanization.

“It’s an unfortunate result,” Milazzo said. “We were very reluctant to do this, but we followed the recommendations of our biological staff.”

Milazzo said that bear sightings have increased in the county recently. Euthanizing bears for encroaching on buildings isn’t uncommon, he added, but the attack on Yepez was an extremely rare incident.

“About 99.9 percent of bears would have fled,” he said. “They don’t see humans as prey. They are shy and docile by nature.”

Milazzo added that bears are like people in that they have unique personalities, and this one just happened to be extremely aggressive.

Yepez was torn over the demise of his attacker.

“This is their habitat,” he said. “She was probably looking for food or water during this drought. I didn’t see her cubs, but they could have been in my bushes or around. We just startled each other, and the fight was on.”

However, Yepez understands the safety issue.

“There’s a lot of elderly people and children in my neighborhood,” he said. “If that bear would have attacked one of them, they’d be dead.”

Yepez credits his service dog, a Yorkshire terrier named Benji, with keeping him alive. While the bear was on top of Yepez, Benji started barking and biting at its heels. The bear got off of Yepez to turn for the dog, giving him just enough time to make it back into his home. Benji was not hurt.

“I’m always so worried about him up here because there are mountain lions, coyotes and hawks that can snatch him,” he said. “I’ve been on guard for him – never thinking that he would one day save my life.”

He got Benji in 2010 as a way of coping with post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Vietnam. Since then, the two have been inseparable.

They’ve traveled to Philadelphia, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Benji accompanied Yepez to New York, where they participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Benji prefers to travel by train, Yepez said, but they brave air travel every now and then.

As he reflected on a birthday that almost never was, Yepez focused his attention on his pint-sized protector.

“He’s such a wonderful companion,” he said. “We walk every day – sometimes twice a day.

“He deserves it.”

This story was originally published September 24, 2015 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Mother bear and cubs put down after near-fatal attack on Mariposa County man."