A woman has used a courgette to fend off a 91kg black bear in her back garden in Montana, USA.

The bear attacked one of the woman's dogs, but fleed when she hurled the vegetable at it, reports the Associated Press.

Missoula County Sheriff's Lt Rich Maricelli said: "She kicked the bear with her left leg as hard as she could."

But the animal would not retreat until struck by a 14-inch courgetted plucked from the home owner's garden.

All three dogs were uninjured and the black bear is still to be caught.

And here I am, thinking that "courgette" is a typo for a 30something woman who acts like she's in her 40s.  Ya learn something new every day.

So a courgette is a vegetable.  What I wanna know is this: what was the bear doing with the courgette?  I thought bears weren't vegetarians!

It's a zucchini... I'd have to run too if someone threw a foot-long zucchini at me.  Although I think I MUST have erred somewhere in my math conversion as the program I used to convert said it was a 200 pound veggie...  egad!  ;D

I tend to run from zucchini no matter what size it is.

If the bear decides to charge you, you're f**ked.  Try not to p*ss off the bear.
:)