Gents, this is how it's done.
Ken Mauldin was jolted awake last weekend with his wife screaming incessantly in their split level home in Colorado's mountain town of Steamboat Springs where their three children were sleeping one floor below. Then she yelled: "There's a bear in the house!"
Okay, you already know that a guy named Ken Mauldin has the perfect name for dealing with rogue bears.
MAUL-DIN!
But this guy has the skills to back it up:
Kelly Mauldin had just been awakened by the couple's barking dogs that didn't wake up her husband before dawn on Saturday. She walked to the door of the couple's bedroom and found herself staring at a male black bear weighing about 400 pounds (181 kilograms) — about 10 feet (3 meters) away in the dining room.
This is a problem that many Americans face from Alaska to Florida.
Bears are just too dang good at surviving in whatever environment they find, including human ones.
The couple didn't know it at the time, but officials believe the bear got inside their home by flipping down the lever of their unlocked front door handle and pushing the door.
In low-testosterone places like California, when a bear breaks into your home, you just hide in a corner and film it as it wrecks the place.
Not in MAULDIN'S HOME:
Ken Mauldin said he grabbed his 40-caliber pistol, took his wife's place at the door and shot once, aiming for the center of the bear's body. He thinks the first shot hit the bear and it charged him as Mauldin continued firing.
(I can practically hear the gun crowd arguing about the merits of 9mm versus .40 cal versus .45 ACP in the comments.)
Live look at Mauldin:
As he was shooting, the bear got as close as 5 feet (1.5 meters) from Mauldin and then turned toward the stairs leading to the home's front door. The bear crashed through a bannister as Mauldin emptied the gun and slid down the stairs, mortally wounded.
It's like a scene straight out of a Western.
After it was shot, the bear lay breathing and heaving between Mauldin and his three sons on the home's lower floor, but he didn't think the bear would get back up. He called 911 and one of his sons called him on his cellphone and Mauldin told the son to stay put in his room.
"My only thought was protecting my family and putting that bear down," said Mauldin.
Someone give this man a medal.
The bear had moved an unopened bag of dog food across the dining room. Police and state wildlife officers arrived a short time later and determined that the bear was dead. They used a winch to pull it into a truck and were impressed by its size, said Justin Pollock, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer for 21-years.
"I deal with bears a lot and I'd say this was a big bear," he said.
No kidding!
Look at this giant:
[Warning: One of the pics shows some blood]
There had been reports from neighbors of a bear going around the neighborhood at night, but authorities aren't sure if this was the same bear. It's worth noting that black bears hardly ever attack humans, but when they get into homes, all bets are off.
Mauldin's family usually does a check of the doors and windows each night, but had forgotten to lock the door that night.
And for those of you who feel sorry for the bear, don't worry, Mauldin does have a heart.
The bear's hide and meat will be donated to people who have signed up on a list to receive them and its head will go up for auction, Pollock said.
Mauldin hopes the break-in at his home sparks greater awareness to prompt "something good from something so terrible that happened."
"We are in a situation now where we have town bears that have lost all of their natural fear of humans," Mauldin said. "In my mind that's what we have to address."
Be careful around them bears!
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
