A woman in Kenai, Alaska, was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries after a brown bear attacked her on the deck of her home early Thursday, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. The encounter, recorded by a domestic security camera, occurred when the woman stepped outside with her two dogs and encountered the bear and two cubs. She fired a shotgun to scare the animals, but the adult bear charged. A second person at the house screamed, and the bear fled with its cubs. The victim’s condition has not been disclosed.

In a separate incident in Torrington, Connecticut, a family’s husky named Bella intercepted a black bear that was charging toward a six-year-old boy playing in the driveway. Local authorities confirmed the child was unharmed. The bear veered away after the dog jumped at it, and the boy’s father, who was nearby, shouted to drive the animal off. The footage, which circulated widely, shows the dog placing itself between the bear and the child. In Canada, a residential security camera captured a different dynamic: a domestic cat confronted a large bear that had entered a backyard, and the bear retreated rapidly. No injuries were reported.

In South America, security and mobile-phone footage documented a series of urban incidents. In the Saavedra neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, a man was filmed smashing the window of a parked pickup truck at midday on a public holiday and making off with a large teddy bear and what appeared to be clothing. The city police have not confirmed an arrest. In Rio de Janeiro’s Maria da Graça district, a couple was recorded abandoning a pit bull chained to a tree; the visibly emaciated dog was rescued the following morning by municipal animal-protection officers and taken to a shelter. The case is being investigated as animal cruelty, and the footage has been handed to the civil police. In Teresina, in northeastern Brazil, a severely underweight and injured horse that had been wandering near a school for months was collected by the municipal zoonosis service after residents alerted authorities.

Viewed from North America, the footage underscores the growing frequency of human-wildlife contact in suburban zones, where defensive behaviour by pets can alter outcomes. Analysts in the region note that both the Alaska and Connecticut cases involved dogs that may have inadvertently triggered or deflected an attack. In South America, the recordings highlight distinct urban challenges: opportunistic property crime and the persistent problem of animal abandonment. Across all cases, the common thread is the role of private and public cameras in documenting events that, until recently, would have relied solely on witness accounts. Investigations remain open in the Alaska bear attack, the Rio abandonment, and the Buenos Aires theft.