A sow and cub walk down East Hopkins Avenue on a summer day in 2022. A cub was recently euthanized after making multiple intrusions into homes in Aspen, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
State wildlife officials said they trapped and euthanized a bear cub earlier this month after it entered occupied homes in an Aspen Highlands neighborhood with a sow and another young black bear.
The male pup’s final visit was made possible by an open window at the residence he entered, according to an incident report.
In response to bear visits and damage to a home in the area in the second week of August, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Division personnel set a single trap at the Moore Drive residence. The same sow and two cubs reportedly broke into homes in the neighborhood multiple times, according to Kara Van Hoose, public information officer for CPW’s northeast region.
“We’ve received reports of four burglaries that we know of,” he said. “And some of them involved people who were home at the time. They were in their homes when the bears came in.”
However, only one pup was captured. The mother did not appear to monitor the pup after it was caught, which was an unusual display of behavior for a sow, Van Hoose said.
“When we try to trap a sow and her cubs,” he said, “if we catch one of the cubs, normally the mom will be there in the trap when we come back if the cub is in the trap. But that didn’t happen in this case and it was unusual, and we don’t really know why that happened.”
According to an incident summary prepared by a CPW officer and received by the Aspen Daily News Tuesday through an open records request, authorities surveyed a site and set a trap at a residential location (which was redacted from the report) on Aug. 10 in response to a person’s report of property damage caused by bears.
“Sow and two puppies entered home through an open window,” the report says. “Same sows and puppies that entered 4-6 homes over the past week and a half. Trap set, caught one puppy. Rp (reporting party) reported that homeowner no longer wanted a trap in the residence.”
This dumpster was seen knocked over Monday morning in the alley behind the old Armory Hall in downtown Aspen, a sure sign that black bears know where their bread is buttered.
The bears did not make physical contact with any humans inside the homes they visited, but repeated break-ins showed they were comfortable with humans, Van Hoose said. That can be an ominous sign, he said.
“Because there was this pattern of breaking into homes and occupying them multiple times, when we see a pattern like that it’s like the last step of the escalation of behavior before an attack,” he said. “The bears no longer have that fear of humans, because they’re breaking into human spaces, they now associate humans with food, they’re trying to find food, and there’s no reduction in that behavior.”
Van Hoose said Friday that the sow and another puppy had broken into at least one home since the puppy was euthanized.
Neither bear had been tagged or has been tagged as of Friday. Colorado’s two-strike policy authorizes CPW to tag and relocate a bear that has been reported as a nuisance. Entering a home or breaking into a vehicle is an example of nuisance bear behavior. Bears tagged a second time are euthanized.
The bears’ habitual behavior of returning multiple times to residences in the Moore Drive area would be nearly impossible to break, even with relocation, Van Hoose said. As creatures of habit, black bears are prone to making repeated visits to reliable food sources.
“I know people are curious and think, ‘Well, why can’t you just relocate the bears?’” she said. “Well, when this bear has already learned this behavior, you just take a bear with that behavior and put it in a new location and that behavior will just continue. The bear will just go into more houses and get closer and closer to people in that new location. So you’re not solving the problem; you’re just putting the problem in a new location.”
As noted in the CPW report, the bears entered the home through an open window. Wildlife experts urge people to keep their doors and windows closed during bear season.
“Because a bear’s sense of smell is 100 times more sensitive than a human’s, an open window can mean they can smell food in a refrigerator, from outside the home or even outside a car,” according to the bears and wildlife section of the City of Aspen website.
Black bears in Colorado mountain towns are nothing new, but berries and other food have been scarce this summer, meaning they’re heading to lower elevations to fill their bellies.
“This year the bears’ natural food source is extremely poor,” Lara Xaiz, wildlife coordinator for the city’s parks and open spaces department, said in an email to the Aspen Daily News last week.
Trash containers are a tasty target, he said. City law prohibits unsecured trash containers, regardless of size, from being left outside a property. Allowed outdoor uses are “an approved wildlife-resistant trash container; or an approved wildlife-resistant trash container; or an approved wildlife-proof trash container,” according to the city ordinance.
“What I’ve been seeing around town is that most of the trash is secured, so the bears are turning to recycling bins (currently code does not require them to be stored in wildlife-resistant containers) and are outgrowing the wildlife-resistant containers most people use,” Xaiz said. “Wildlife-resistant is tested on bears for 60 to 90 minutes, but our current code does not require these bins to be stored in a garage, shed or enclosure, so the bears can spend all night breaking in to get bounties. These past two weeks they are stopping up secure trash bins and bending the steel bar to get food. It’s very important for everyone to secure all lower level windows and doors and lock their car doors.”
Van Hoose agreed.
“It’s the responsibility of the people who live in that area to not allow bears to continue that pattern of behavior or find food the first time,” he said. “It’s things like putting away trash until the morning of pickup, keeping cars locked because bears can open car doors, keeping house doors locked and windows closed. We see bears punching through windows and screens all the time trying to get into houses.”
Motorists are also advised to be on the lookout for bears on local roads, as Xaiz noted there have been a few vehicle strikes in recent weeks on Highway 82. Earlier this month, a vehicle traveling through the Aspen roundabout struck a bear, she said.
