Bears in Boulder

Black Bear

Two recent extreme weather events in Boulder have affected the local bear food supply.  First, Boulder suffered a brutal freeze last fall -- it went from 60 degrees to -11 in two days and then stayed cold for a week.  Then, a late freeze in the spring further affected budding bushes and trees.  These two events affected many trees in Boulder including our two big elm trees in our yard.  More importantly, however, they wiped out this year's crop of apples, plums, choke cherries and other berries that normally supply bears with critical nutrients for their "hibernation".  The result is that we've seen many more bears rummaging through the trash in our neighborhood.  For a week in late August, we saw bears almost nightly.  We were able to photograph this one while he/she was sorting through medical waste near our house and while I was thrilled to take the picture, I was bummed that he/she was learning "bad" behavior.  Our parks and wildlife agency is pretty tough on bears and we hoped that by harassing it a bit (with the flash) that we were able to discourage him/her from coming back.  Thank heavens the medical office eventually closed up their dumpster and, for the past two months, we haven't seen any in the neighborhood.

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