AVON, Conn. (WTNH) — A bear was euthanized after it attacked a woman in Avon on Friday.

According to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), a 74-year-old woman was walking her dog on a leash early Friday morning along Berkshire Crossing Road when a black bear approached and bit her.

DEEP said the woman received non-life-threatening injuries and underwent treatment at the hospital.

Tom Armstrong who lives on Berkshire Crossing witnessed the attack. He told News 8 his dog started barking at him from a screened-in porch that faces the trail.

“As the dog was barking at the bear,I think the bear got a little sketchy and kind of headed back into the woods and then her dog started barking at the bear, and the bear kinda reacted by lunging at the dog. The woman put herself between her dog and the bear to protect the dog. In the process, the bear got her a couple of times,” he said.

As a part of DEEP’s Black Bear Response protocol, an attack on a human is a category four response, which means humane euthanization. The bear was euthanized on scene.

“As the bears have gotten much more comfortable around humans, they’re habituated, they’re food conditioned. They start to think that houses and people’s yards are places to look for food,” said Jenny Dickson, Director of Wildlife Division at DEEP.  

“It is DEEP’s policy to manage the black bear population to maximize ecological, economic, and cultural benefits while providing for public safety and property protection,” DEEP officials said.

Anyone who witnessed the incident this morning is urged to contact DEEP’s 24-hour dispatch center at (860) 424-3333.

The bear population in Connecticut is only on-the-rise; DEEP already responded to multiple reports of bear-home entries this week and had to euthanize another bear in Salisbury that entered a home numerous times.