Bear sightings in Highlands Ranch prompt bear-aware warnings

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (KDVR) — Multiple agencies are warning the public to be bear-aware this week, especially those out grilling for the Fourth of July, after several recent reports of bear sightings in Highlands Ranch neighborhoods.

While plucking weeds in the middle of the day on Monday, Rhae Balzer spotted something she had never seen in 18 years of living at her Highlands Ranch home.

“I was just out here working in the yard, and I looked across the cross over there, and this bear was running down, down the sidewalk,” Balzer said. “It was shocking.”

A neighbor’s surveillance camera captured exactly what Balzer saw after a bear passed by and two sheriff’s deputies trailed right after it in their patrol cars.

“I was stunned,” Balzer said. “It could have come over here.”

Balzer was even more shocked because her daughter, who lives a few miles down the road in another Highlands Ranch neighborhood, saw a different bear just last week.

“It was about 9:30 at night, and we were sitting outside and a bear just comes straight across,” Balzer’s daughter, Jill Widmann, said. “I’m wondering why they’re coming down here, really, you know, and just hope they don’t hurt anybody. I assume they’re out for food, but it’s kind of neat to see them.”

Why do bears come around? It’s simple: Food

FOX31 asked Colorado Parks and Wildlife if there was a reason behind the recent sightings in these neighborhoods.

“Food,” CPW spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said. “ They love trash, so they’re probably attracted to something that smells like food to them here. And once bears find food in a certain area, they will return there again and again because they remember that they found food there before.”

With recent sightings in Highlands Ranch neighborhoods, CPW is asking people to haze the bears to help them move on . They suggest making loud noises like with car alarms, pots and pans, air horns or yelling.

CPW also asks people to keep all trash locked up until the morning of pickup. Make sure grills are thoroughly cleaned so they do not smell like food residue.

Balzer was curious about what is happening after the sightings are reported.

“If a bear is spotted, we try all of those hazing techniques first,” Van Hoose said. “We really want to get the bear going into wild spaces, into open space where it’s not eating trash, because we all want bears to live.”

If you spot a bear in your neighborhood, CPW asks people to call and report it to them so they can track and keep data of bear whereabouts.

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