Bear crashed through skylight into boy's birthday party before licking the cupcakes

A black bear crashed a boy's birthday party in Alaska after it fell through the roof of a family home just prior to the celebrations on Saturday. The bear had shimmied onto the roof of Alicia Bishop and Glenn Merrill's home in the state capital Juneau and was walking across a skylight when the bottom fell out. "I heard this cracking," said Mr Merrill, who was preparing for his son's first birthday party. "And the next thing you know, there's this bear that, I mean, literally, fell right from (the skylight)."

He said he and the bear were about 3ft apart and just stared at each other in disbelief. Mr Merrill had his parents take his son, Jackson, upstairs, and he went into another room and shut the door. The dazed bear quickly recovered from its fall. It then calmly wandered over to the living room table, replete with a spread of birthday treats, and helped itself to some lemon blueberry and peanut butter cupcakes. “The bear walks over and puts its paws up on the table and starts licking his birthday cupcakes, and I’m just like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” said Ms Bishop, who was watching the spectacle from the kitchen behind closed glass doors.
The bear enjoyed the red and green cupcake frosting while Ms Bishop opened a door on the other side of the room that led to the backyard. The couple then yelled and “shooed” at the bear until it casually ambled out the door. “I think he was used to humans,” Merrill said, adding the bear did not act aggressively. “He was awfully calm,” Ms Bishop added. The bear was only inside the house for about three to four minutes, but the incident didn’t end there, the couple says. It came around the back of the house and peered inside from the wooden porch in the backyard.

“It was up by the window like, ‘I want more cupcakes,’” Ms Bishop said. “He wanted back in, that’s for sure,” Merrill said. With guests expected to arrive any minute, Ms Bishop called 911 at that point. Merrill, meanwhile, ran next door to borrow bear spray from the neighbours. It was only after Merrill sprayed the mace in its vicinity that the bear meandered into the woods. About 30 minutes later, Juneau police responded to a report of a bear inside a nearby home. Officers arrived and shot it when it appeared in the doorway. The bear ran behind the house, where it was later found dead. Wildlife officials suspect it is the same bear, described in both incidents as a young male, weighing about 13 stone.