A BEAR OF A PROBLEM
Boulder residents are seeing a rise in home intrusions by bears this season as the animals have adapted to their human neighbors and seek their food regularly.
boulder» A few weeks ago, Roxanne Hunt and Wayne Fluent came out of their bedroom around 6 a.m. to find a 350-pound black bear sitting in front of their refrigerator.
He’d already eaten an entire box of Honey Nut Cheerios, checked the dishwasher and the garbage unsuccessfully for food and was making his way through some cinnamon butter and French onion dip.
They’ve spotted a bear, perhaps the same one, approaching their home or trying to break in several times since then.
Fluent, 82, has lived in the Boulder Heights subdivision in the foothills northwest of Boulder for 37 years and has never seen as much bear activity as he has this summer.
The neighborhood’s online message forum is blowing up with near-daily reports of bears breaking into homes and cars, sometimes hitting the same house multiple times a week.
Some Boulder Heights residents say the bear activity is nothing new — it’s just creating more e-mail chatter. Others say the reports are coming from new homeowners or tenants who aren’t used to living in the wild.
Either way, all the talk about bears has residents grappling with how to live peacefully among the wildlife.
“We all take precautions, and we don’t want the bears killed,” Hunt said. “But they’re damaging a lot of places up here right now, so everybody’s worried that they’re becoming a little rogue.”
Jessy Rhyan, who has lived in Boulder Heights with her husband, Travis, for about a year, said every night between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. she can hear a baby bear cub crying as its mother wanders off to find food.
It’s an unnerving sound, and with two kids under the age of 10, Rhyan said she hasn’t been sleeping much.
“We’ve been hunted and plagued by them for the last couple of weeks,” she said.
Though no bear has broken into their home or garage, Rhyan said bears have broken into her car three times in the last month, even though she doesn’t leave food in her vehicle.
The bears seem particularly sophisticated and aggressive this year to Rudy Dichtl, a 38-year resident of Boulder Heights who said he’s never seen this many bear “hits” before in the neighborhood.
He’s never had a “bear incident,” but many of his close neighbors have. Most recently, one came in through a neighbor’s window, pulled all the drawers and trays out of the refrigerator and ended up devouring a pile of energy bars.
Dichtl said he doesn’t want any bears to be killed, but he worried that the next break-in could result in a violent confrontation.
“We all have the same opinion that the bears were here before us and we should learn to live with them,” Dichtl said. “This particular bear is very, very aggressive and has learned a lot of bad manners. Maybe it’s time to get rid of him permanently. I’d rather see them drive the bear away.”
Some in the subdivision blame newcomers or residents who haven’t bearproofed their homes for the recent string of bad bear behavior.
If a bear finds food in one garbage can, it’s likely to check every garbage can on the block, said Jennifer Churchill, a spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Churchill said it was “disturbing” to see bears teaching their cubs to search for human food sources, rather than search for berries, acorns and other natural foods.
She rattled off a list of recent reports from Boulder Heights, including some that described bears coming in through open windows or doors.
Many precautions for living safely among bears are common sense, but Churchill said neighborhoods need to work together.
“It’s a community issue,” she said. “We really want to encourage communities to get on the same page with their values as far as, ‘We don’t want to have bears around.’ Don’t put trash out too early. Make sure we close any lower-level windows and doors and lock them so that bears can’t get in. It only takes one time for the bear to get that reward to start zeroing in on homes and garages.”
“We all take precautions, and we don’t want the bears killed. But they’re damaging a lot of places up here right now, so everybody’s worried that they’re becoming a little rogue.”
Roxanne Hunt, homeowner