Watch man shoo away marshmallow-stealing bear in Connecticut home. ‘Take off, bud’

“Get outta here,” a man can be heard shouting at a big black bear as it stood in his house, staring at him down a short hallway.

The video, shared on Facebook by Christine Vannie of West Hartford, Connecticut, shows the bear slowly walking towards the door before exiting, going down the front steps and walking into the yard as the man follows it shouting.

“Take off, bud. That way!” he says.

The man in the video, Vannie’s husband, Bill Priest, told WFSB that he found the bear in the kitchen eating an entire bag of marshmallows.

“He had everything on the floor in there eating,” he told the outlet.

He told CBS News that he put a chair between him and the bear and tried to shoo it out the front door.

His efforts didn’t keep the hungry animal away for long. Priest told the outlet that it returned the following day and tore up a screen.

This wasn’t the first bear encounter the Connecticut residents had in their home.

One week prior, a bear “ransacked” a refrigerator and freezer in the couple’s garage, Vannie told we-ha.com.

The video of the bear inside the couple’s home, which Vannie posted on Facebook on July 31, was shared 1,200 times.

“This just happened today!!” Vannie wrote in the caption. “(Department of Energy and Environmental Protection) has advised us.”

Vannie did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection brought a bear trap to the couple’s home and planned to sedate and tag the bear once it was caught, according to WFSB.

There have been more than 7,000 bear sightings in Connecticut so far this year, according to the department. Officials estimate the state’s bear population is around 1,000 to 1,200 and is increasing.

This story was originally published August 2, 2022 at 6:24 PM with the headline "Watch man shoo away marshmallow-stealing bear in Connecticut home. ‘Take off, bud’."