New Mexico man shoots and kills bear that broke into his camper

Hunting season came early for one northern New Mexico man.

On July 12, Calvin Stoddard was sleeping inside his camper near Hermit’s Peak when a black bear busted through the screen door close to midnight.

Abruptly awakened, Stoddard turned on a light to see the large omnivore sifting through the 64-year-old’s belongings.

Stoddard grabbed a bolt-action rifle and shot the bear, killing it. The next day, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish showed up to investigate.

“Bear came in and I (expletive) killed it,” Stoddard told Game and Fish when officers asked what happened. “He woke me up… and I turned on the spotlight and there he is.”

“Grabbed my gun and shot the son of a (expletive).”

When the officers entered the camper, along N.M. 65 near El Porvenir, they were greeted by a dead black bear in the kitchen, lying in a pool of blood, as seen in an officer’s body camera footage. Stoddard did not allow both officers into the camper, forcing one of the men to grab the bear by its claw and drag it out of the camper.

Stoddard, who said he used to hunt bear and mountain lion, asked officers several times if he could keep the bear and even asked if he could recommend a potential bear buyer. But Game and Fish does not allow people to keep animals once they have killed them.

Officers said it could encourage people to kill animals in what they claim is self-defense in order to keep the animal afterward.

“He did damage on me, so I should be able to keep it and process it,” Stoddard told the officers, asking if he could at least keep the head.

If a person intentionally kills an animal outside the legal hunting season, it’s considered poaching, according to Darren Vaughan, spokesperson for Game and Fish.

“Depending on the situation, that person could face charges that include unlawful killing, unlawful possession or hunting without a license,” Vaughan said.

Vaughan said Stoddard reported the incident properly, and officers were able to assess the situation and found there was no criminal activity in regard to the killing.

The lapel video showed one of the officers walked into the camper, which was filled with “several cans of tuna and piles of trash ... which likely contributed to luring the bear into the camper.”

The officer grabbed the bear by its paw to drag it out of the camper and the body plopped into a furry heap on the steps leading into the camper. An officer then attached a towline to the bear and used a truck to drag it through grass and dirt before officers hoisted the body into the bed of a Game and Fish truck.

Stoddard then told the officers, “Did you know there’s a bone in the dick? They’re (expletive) badass, I bet he’s got one, lemme look.” Stoddard then buried his hand into the bear to feel for the penis bone. When the officers told Stoddard he couldn’t keep the penis bone, he said “nobody would know.”

An officer told him, “everybody knows, we got all this ... we’re recording, too.” Stoddard smacks his hands together in disappointment.

“A situation like this one where somebody has to kill an animal in the interest of their safety or another human’s safety is not terribly common,” Vaughan said. “Typically, we only see one incident like this every five years.”