An intruder, standing by her bedroom window, woke Julie York up in the middle of the night Wednesday.

Peering through the window in a sleepy haze, she pressed her face against the glass for a better look. A 350-pound black bear stared back, standing on its hind legs on York's enclosed patio.

"I screamed," admitted York, who said she's usually not frightened by wildlife. "I was surprised."

York called the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to report the incident, and laughed it off as one of those weird mountain-life experiences.

But the next day, the bear was back at her place on Casper Mountain. York pulled up next to it in her car, called Game and Fish again and waited.

"I was like, 'Well, I guess I'm staying in the car for a while,'" York said.

The bear climbed on her car, scratching the paint as York watched from inside.

"I don't think he ever put all of his weight on it, but he was pawing his way around it peering in," she said. "He was just curious and that was it, which was funny at the time, but you think about it and that's dangerous."

By the end of its two-day stint in York's neighborhood, the bear broke at least one house window, one truck window and damaged two cars. Robin Kepple, a representative of the Game and Fish Department, said a neighbor's habit of feeding birds encouraged the bear to hunt for food in the surrounding houses and vehicles.

"We have problems where people put food out for wildlife," Kepple said. "The neighbor was just trying to feed the birds, but the bear can't tell the difference. He just followed his nose."

Lettuce, grapefruit, tomato and cracked corn were found in the surrounding area, some inside large bear paw tracks.

"It was just doing what a bear does, looking for the next meal," Kepple said. "And it came in fairly close contact with humans, really not by any fault of its own."

"He was so bold," York said. "He wasn't afraid of anything. He was definitely thinking food, and it's kinda scary that he's associating humans with a food source."

The relatively minor incidents - the first of this bear season on Casper Mountain - ended when the Game and Fish Casper office captured the bear. It was transported about 60 miles from where it was captured, Kepple said, to "a more remote location so it won't get in any more trouble."

Wyoming doesn't follow a set protocol when dealing with bear encounters, Kepple said. Aggressive bears posing an immediate threat are generally destroyed, while bears caught in populated areas are usually moved to more secluded locations. Kepple said Wyoming often uses a "two-strike policy, just having public safety in mind."

In September, Game and Fish trapped and destroyed a young bear that entered at least one home on Casper Mountain. Four days later, another bear was spotted along the North Platte River in north Casper but was never caught.

More recently, a black bear was sighted on a farm near the North Platte River in Goshen County. And Nebraska officials killed the first black bear in the state since 1907 on Monday near the Wyoming border after the bear wandered through the town of Harrison.

Contact reporter Megan Lee at (307) 266-0589 or megan.lee@trib.com