Around 7 a.m. one day in late March, Dillon resident Sandy Engelman sat down to do some work near the sliding-glass door that looks into her backyard, as she usually does in the mornings.

That’s when she caught sight of something from the corner of her eye. 

“At first, I thought it was a moose,” Engelman said. “I got up off my seat and looked and saw a bear walking around the other side of the house.”

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The bear must have crossed U.S. Highway 6 into the Tenderfoot Street neighborhood because that part of town lies up against the Dillon Reservoir, Engelman said, and the highway cuts it off from the nearby forests.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife public information officer Rachel Gonzales said this is the time of year that bears are becoming active again. The first reported bear sighting of the season in Summit County occurred on March 12 in Breckenridge, Gonzales noted. Since then, there have been three more sightings reported to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, including another reported sighting in Breckenridge, as well as one in Dillon and one in Silverthorne.

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In one case already this year, a bear reportedly got into trash in Summit County, Gonzales said. It is best for both the wildlife and local neighborhoods that bears don’t get into trash or other unnatural foods, she said.

Bears are coming out of their dens all over the state, Gonzales said. Anyone that lives in “bear country” should take simple steps like securing their trash indoors or in a bear-proof container and taking down bird feeders, she said.

“They’re coming out, checking things out — and they’re hungry too. So, they’ll be looking for any opportunity,” Gonzales said. “While we should be ‘bear aware’ all year, this is definitely a good time to make sure you’re practicing good bear prevention.”

Engelman said there are no trash cans outdoors on her property because the landlord keeps them in the garage. But the bear luckily ignored the suet bird feeders she had hanging near the door.

Coming so close to the bear, “my nerves were shot for hours after that. I couldn’t settle down,” Engelman said. She joked that it was good her husband wasn’t cooking when the bear stopped by.

“It didn’t put its nose to the patio door, but you saw how close it came — pretty freaking close,” she said. “And, it’s a good thing Bill wasn’t making bacon at the time because the exhaust fan is right in the patio. It was super cool but also super scary.”

‘Bear country’

Technically, black bears — the only species of bears found in Colorado — don’t hibernate but go through a lighter sleep-state, sometimes waking up throughout the winter, Gonzales said. Despite the name, black bears can also be brown or cinnamon in color, she added.

When there is no food available, usually in the fall and winter, black bears will go to their den where their metabolism slows down enough that they can survive for months, Gonzales said. Bears will periodically poke outside their dens to check on the availability of food, venturing out when food is available, she said.

Male bears typically emerge looking for food first, followed by female bears, known as sows, and cubs, Gonzales said. The 17,000 to 20,000 bears that live in the state primarily eat grasses, berries, fruits, nuts and plants, but they will eat trash or other unnatural food if it is available to them, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

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“We want the bears to be in search of natural food sources. We don’t want them to find a trash can overflowing with last night’s leftovers and to consume those,” Gonzales said. “Bears have a great sense of smell and are very smart. Once they learn they can find food this way, they’re going to do it again.”

Residents and guests should store trash indoors and not bring it outside until the day trash is supposed to be picked up, Gonzales said. Due to their curiosity, hungry bears can sometimes even figure out how to open doors or climb through windows in search of food, she said, so it is also important to lock cars and homes.

Bears that become accustomed to coming into human living spaces to look for food can pose a danger to communities, Gonzales said. Last year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife had to euthanize a bear in Telluride that had grown sick and was dying after learning to survive on eating trash, she noted. 

“It’s not healthy for the bear. Wildlife’s stomachs aren’t meant for human food and especially not meant for trash,” Gonzales said. “They don’t know the difference between a hamburger and a hamburger wrapping. By (leaving out trash) you’re basically killing the animal.”

While bears, especially cubs, can be cute, it is important to recognize that bears are wild animals and should be kept away from places where humans live and work, Gonzales said. If a bear gets into trash or bird feeders in a residential neighborhood, it should be hazed away from the property by yelling, blowing an air horn or activating an alarm, she said. Never approach or corner a bear.

Gail Marshall, who runs Summit County Bear Aware, a volunteer group associated with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, noted that bears lived in the Rocky Mountains before modern civilization took over.

Marshall, who worked with bears throughout her career as a veterinarian before moving to the county in 1993, noted that local towns have ordinances related to bear-compliant garbage receptacles.

“Summit County is bear country,” Marshall said. “We’ve taken over their territory. We took over their habitat.”

‘A great place for bears’

Late in the evening after a meeting last fall, Frisco Town Council member Rick Ihnken said he was surprised to notice a bear walking down Main Street as he was leaving town hall.

Ihnken recalled that experience during a news conference Wednesday, April 10, during which Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced that Colorado Parks and Wildlife is offering $1 million in grants for projects that reduce conflicts with bears in local communities.

Polis announced the next round of funding for the human-bear conflict reduction community grant program from within a bear-proof dumpster enclosure the town of Frisco recently built using a grant from the program.

“We know that Colorado is a great place to live and work. It’s not only a great place for people; it’s a great place for bears,” Polis said. “And, sometimes, as people move and live in areas that bears like to consider their own, it can cause problems if we’re not smart about it. That means problems for people — property damage and significant costs — and of course problems for bears that can ingest large amounts of plastics and learn very unhealthy behaviors.”

Frisco communications director Vanessa Agee said that the town received $50,000 in 2022 from the state grant program to construct the enclosure where Polis made the announcement Wednesday.

The town had a significant problem with animals getting into its dumpster, recycling and compost, Agee said. Wildlife cameras caught bears and raccoons frequenting the spot, so the town applied for the grant to construct the bear-proof trash enclosure, which will be complete once doors are added, she said.

The human-bear-conflict reduction community grant program is open to local governments, organizations, homeowners associations, community groups, businesses, tribes, universities and individuals, according to the governor’s office. The application deadline for grants between $50,000 and $500,000 is May 24.

Polis noted that trash enclosures and hazing bears away from communities are “simple solutions” that allow humans and wildlife to coexist.

“People that live in areas like Frisco and Boulder and Golden often live in these areas in part because they love the animals,” Polis said. “… But interactions can turn dangerous for the people and animals involved, and that’s what we want to prevent.”