This happened to the resident of a traditional home, but it can just as easily happen to an RVer camped in “bear country.” Every so often you hear a story like this. Sadly, this one, like many others, ends badly, with the bear being euthanized.
In this case, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) personnel responded to a call placed by a Colorado Springs resident that a bear entered her home through a screen door.
CPW officers were called to a Northwest Colorado Springs neighborhood around 10:30 a.m., Sunday. When the officers arrived they discovered a 150-pound male bear still inside the home sitting on the woman’s couch.
The bear entered the home by ripping a patio screen door. The resident was cooking bacon and was able to safely exit her home through her front door. CPW wildlife officers reported a birdfeeder outside the home and cat food was located by the patio screen door, which could have attracted the bear to the home.
Wildlife officers previously relocated the bear from a Northeast region neighborhood; however, it managed to navigate itself back into a populated neighborhood in an attempt to look for food. After assessing the situation, wildlife officials euthanized the bear to protect residents from potentially dangerous attacks and additional property damage.
“It’s always a hard day when we have to euthanize a bear,” said District Wildlife Manager Cassidy English. “Our mission is to protect wildlife. When bears become habituated to people, they can become a threat to public safety. This is why it is so important that our community works together to keep wildlife wild.”
Most conflicts between people and bears can be traced to easily accessible human food, garbage, birdseed or other attractants. A bear’s natural drive to eat can overcome its wariness of humans. Bears that get too comfortable around people can learn to open doors, destroy property or even become aggressive towards humans.
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To “euthanize” means to put to death humanely, usually to save an animal from needless pain and suffering. The only thing suffering here was the patience and budget of animal control officers. The euphemistic semantic gymnastics used to justify questionable actions is too much abused, IMO.
At the very least, it was a “teachable moment” lost on the bear not to have pepper-sprayed him before releasing him after his first human encounter. Such potential problem animals have to associate humans with undesirable consequences. To simply capture and release a nuisance animal is to tell it there are no costs associated with human encounters other than inconvenience.
The bear should have been relocated even further away.
Euthanizing the bear was not necessary.
Agreed, the Rockies are a big enough place to lose a bear into…
They couldn’t relocate it to a sanctuary or zoo? So sad.
Sad to exchange a bear for a cat and some birds. I love my birds, but all you have to do is remove the cat food (feed them inside), put bird feeders up higher, and keep the danged door closed. Not that difficult.
How times (lots of it fed by FEAR) have changed things.
As a youth I spent some time living in Fort Nelson at mile 300 on the Alaska Highway. My dad ran the Loiselle Truck Transportation depot, based out of Dawson Creek, there.
In this then small town blip on this rutted dangerous busy dusty route, was a hotel called the Avonlea.
Along one side of the hotel was a board sidewalk running up to a gate at the end of the building. Around the corner was a door leading into the kitchen – on the other side of that gate was a large hole where the chef threw all the hotels food scraps into, purposely encouraging bears and the occasional wolf, to wander through town and drop by to feast upon.
That feeding spot was a highly touted destination for tourists and bus passengers on their way up north.
Over that time I never once heard of a human bear encounter. As a kid I spent many hours in the forest surrounding this town, never once having fear of the animals I and my friends (we were all bush kids with BB guns in those days) shared that forest with.
Like Stephen Stilles said in his (Buffalo Springfield) song : For what it’s worth”
“there’s something happening here – what it is isn’t exactly clear….”
I would think they could have moved the bear far,far away, but if they couldn’t i hope they butchered it Bear meat js delicious.
Bird feeder, cat food. I wonder if she kept her garbage outside as well. I lived in Palmer Lake that is north of Colorado Springs and this is something the town would tell people not to do. I remember someone new moved to town then shot and killed two cubs for being in his garbage. Well the problem was not the cubs, but the human. I would say 99% of the town population learned how to co-exist with wildlife. Like not letting your little kids to wait for the bus by themselves so a cougar could get them. If you are going to live where there is wildlife you need to learn how to protect THEM and yourself.
I have a friend who lives is Bear area and then allow the bears to wander around in their yard. That I see as the problem , Their are many type of things to use to detour them, so I am told, but too many people wish to see them up close. These are dangerous animals, not pets. That teaches the bears to be comfortable around human environments. That, I believe, is a huge problem. Wild dangerous animals and people should never share the same space, that is just asking for trouble. The people who support this type of behavior are setting up all people to be hurt, killed or at least have property damage. Please stop.
Tom, I agree with your comment that wild dangerous animals and people should never share the same space. The wild dangerous animals were there first so why do we let people move onto their land ?