Neighborhood In Arvada On Alert After Sightings Of A Roaming Young Bear
(CBS4) - Colorado Parks and Wildlife says they have received numerous reports of a bear roaming through Arvada over the past week.
Dan Patino told CBS4 he spotted a bear roaming around his neighborhood near Griffith Station Park in Arvada. Initially he says he wasn't sure what he was looking at.
"The last thing you think of is a bear, you go hike in the mountains when do you ever see a bear? Never. But to be here in a park in a city or metro area it's just odd," he said.
Sure enough it was a bear spending a Saturday afternoon in the park with everyone else.
"There's a bear here in the park. There's people here, families with dogs and kids here and the swings and here's this bear mulling around," Patino said.
Patino captured video from his phone as law enforcement and Colorado Parks and Wildlife responded.
CPW spokesman Jason Clay said the bear has been in the area for more than a week -- starting from near the Rocky Flats area -- and it was last reported near 50th Avenue and Dover Street.
"This one is a young, inexperienced bear that is kind of trying to make it on its own and looking for its own territory. As it has been going through on its trek through Arvada it's really been finding a lot of trash, we know it has gotten into beehives, bird feeders and so it's making an easy living," Clay said.
He says until they can relocate the bear, Arvada residents should remove food sources that the bear could easily get to.
"(Keeping) your trash in your garage, closed and secured. Taking down any bird feeders. Don't have any pet food outside," he said.
Patino says while the sighting was certainly unexpected, he knows it's part of living on Colorado's Front Range and hopes everyone will take the advice of CPW which will help get the bear back where he belongs.
"I'm just concerned not so much for a bear being in the neighborhood -- it's alarming, it's unusual -- but more concerned that the bear might get euthanized, which I hope not," he said.
CPW says the best opportunity for them to tranquilize and then relocate the bear is when it's stationary -- maybe napping or in a tree -- and ask that the public report to them when they see the bear in their area.
