Posted July 10, 2017 09:02:03

Photo: Black bears are not usually aggressive but there have been recent attacks in the US. (AP: Toby Talbot, file)

Wildlife officers in the United States are searching for a black bear that attacked a Colorado teenager and bit him on the head as he slept outdoors near campers.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said the 19-year-old camp staff member woke up about 4:00am to a "crunching sound" with his head inside the mouth of the bear, which was trying to pull him out of his sleeping bag.

She said the teen punched the bear, and other staff members at Glacier View Ranch — 77 kilometres north-west of the city of Denver — yelled and swatted at the bear which ran away.

The teenager, identified only as Dylan, was treated briefly at a hospital and released.

He told a local television station that the bear dragged him about three metres before he was able to free himself.

"The crunching noise, I guess, was the teeth scraping against the skull as it dug in."

The teenager teaches wilderness survival at the camp owned by the Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh Day Adventists.

Dylan and the other staff members were near teepees where 12 and 13-year-old campers were sleeping. None of them were hurt.

Black bears are not usually aggressive but they recently attacked a woman in a popular hiking area in Idaho and killed two people in Alaska.

Sixteen-year-old Patrick "Jack" Cooper of Anchorage was killed after he got lost and veered off a trail during a mountain race.

Mine contract worker Erin Johnson of Anchorage died and her co-worker was injured in a mauling about 440 kilometres north-east of Anchorage.

AP

Topics: animal-attacks, united-states