If you live in Colorado Springs, you’ve surely heard about the pregnant woman who had a scary encounter with a bear last week. She was jogging in the Rockrimmon area and saw a bear, who then started following her. (She ended up running into traffic and got hit by a car – everything’s OK now.)
It’s actually not that rare to see bears and other wildlife on the west side of Colorado Springs. In the spring, the bears come out of hibernation and head to town in search of food. Often they follow streams that run from the mountains and end up in pretty urband and suburban areas. Jeremy had an open house in Rockrimmon one Sunday and a large buck sat a few feet away from the back patio all afternoon, barely batting an eye when he opening the sliding door to say “hi”.
The neighborhoods west of I-25 are some of the prettiest in town, but if you live there or are thinking about buying a home there, it’s worth giving some thought to the issue of keeping safe around wildlife – particularly if you have children. Experts say it’s actually a bad a idea to run away from bears or mountain lions, since that triggers their attack response. According to wildlife officer Michael Seraphin, the best thing to do is to “raise your hands above your head and slowly back away. As strange as it might seem, black bears might think you’re another bear so you also should to talk to them.”
As for the bear that was involved in the incident last week, it was euthanized because after investigation, the Department of Wildlife was able to determine that the same bear had been involved in multiple incidents and did not exhibit a normal fear of humans.
