Kristine Green woke up face to fang with a black bear staring at her through a bedroom window at her farm home near the tiny southeastern North Dakota town of Fairmount.

"Seeing a big bear head and claws is not something nice to wake up to," Green said. "I just remember flying out of bed and shaking. I was eyeball to eyeball with that bear, no more than two feet away."

Green said she and her husband, Eric, had just gone to bed Tuesday night when she heard the bear scatching on the bedroom window screen.

Green yelled at her husband and he yelled at the bear, thinking it was a pesky raccoon that had been raiding birdfeeders outside their trailer home earlier in the week.

She grabbed her camera and her husband grabbed a gun, a .243-caliber hunting rifle.

"He put his boots on while he was running," she said. "I heard three shots and a howl."

The bear lay dead in the couple's driveway. The couple notified the state Game and Fish Department the next morning.

District game warden Tim Phalen said it's illegal to shoot a bear in North Dakota unless it's in self-defense or to protect property.

"It was tough for the bear but we have no problems with what they did," Phalen said.

The bear was about 2 years old and weighed more than 200 pounds, Phalen said. The bruin likely came from northeastern South Dakota, where officials there had been getting reports of a wandering bear, he said.

"We think is was the same bear that had raised some heck in South Dakota, knocking over garbage cans and birdfeeders," Phalen said.

The carcass has been sent to Bismarck for necropsy.

Phalen said the bear may have been attracted by birdfeeders outside the couple's home.

"We don't know if the bear was just curious, or if he was trying to get into the trailer house," Phalen said. "We do know he had his paws against the house and was at least looking in the window."

Phalen said bears are rare in southeastern North Dakota, although two have been tranquilized in the area, including one last year in Fargo.

Kristine Green said she grew up in the area and had never seen a bear there. She hopes it will be her last sighting.

"It scared the daylights out of the people," Phalen said. "People in North Dakota just aren't used to seeing a bear up against their house."