Close encounters with the bear kind

Kelsey Persyn, a Rocky Mountain National Park interpretive park ranger, teaches a bear education program outside the Beaver Meadows Visitors Center. Persyn utilizes the help of eager volunteers and props to teach visitors the difference between black and grizzly bears.
A herd of elk wanders through the Estes Park Visitor Center parking lot.
This Jeep was totaled after a bear — upon smelling a cup of strawberry lemonade left in the vehicle overnight — opened an unlocked door with its paws. After it jumped inside, the weight of the bear rocked the vehicle and closed the door. After hearing the early morning commotion, the owners tied a rope to the door handle, stepping back near the garage before pulling the door open to release the animal.
A girl touches a rubber bear paw at a the Estes Valley Bear Education Task Force “Bear Booth” table set up at the weekly Estes Park Farmer’s Market. The booth educates newcomers and visitors on how to safely coexist with wildlife.
T-shirts and humorous kitsch with wildlife-related themes are popular in Estes Park shops.
A man carries a baby along a popular walkway in downtown Estes Park as a black bear peers out from nearby bushes.
In 2017, two black bears were shot and killed in an Estes Park neighborhood. The shooter has still not been found. The $5,000 reward money has been donated by Estes Park residents in hopes of encouraging someone to come forward with information regarding the crime.
Theresa White, from Estes Park, Colorado, tries to deter deer and elk from her vegetable garden using high fences. After some deer started jumping into the garden, she added yellow caution tape banner.
Elk graze on the Estes Park golf course turf.
Motorists on Highway 34 stop to photograph bighorn sheep near the steep walls of the Big Thompson Canyon. Highway 34 is one of two main roadways connecting the Front Range to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.
Sandy Davis, from Cincinnati, Ohio, enjoys watching the elk rut from her vehicle.
A sign at the entrance of Estes Park, Colorado, warns drivers to be cautious of possible wildlife on the roads.

At the height of the tourist season at Rocky Mountain National Park in 2018, a plump black bear ambled into the lobby of the nearby Stanley Hotel. It climbed onto a large, cherry wood table, examined an antique couch, gave it a deliberate sniff and then sauntered back out the door it had come in.

Estes Park, Colorado, the gateway community to Rocky Mountain National Park, has what most would consider a problem. Overzealous bears regularly wander into unexpected and inappropriate human places: the warmly lit kitchens of residents, inviting alleyway garbage cans; they commonly thrash their way into tourist vehicles to investigate a scent.

As the population of Colorado’s Front Range swells, visitation to Rocky Mountain National Park, too, has spiked. That’s only meant more encounters with wildlife and increased reports of “problem” bears that have become highly accustomed to humans and consistently rummage for scraps.

But it’s the very possibility of encountering these animals that encourages so many people to move to places like Estes Park and to visit its surrounding wildish areas. As much as our proximity to wildlife confounds our natural resource managers, it continues to delight a great many humans.

In recent years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife managers have worked with the city of Estes Park to adopt practices to better cohabitate with our non-human neighbors. In 2015, the town passed a wildlife ordinance that’s lessened a hungry bear’s access to its greatest temptation: trash. Residents must use either a wild-resistant container or put trashcans outside only on pickup days. Beyond efforts among the residential streets, the city also replaced all of the public trash containers in 2016. And though it was an expensive project, a whopping $1,200 for each individual canister, the community pitched in through an innovative sponsorship program.

The city continues to educate newcomers and visitors through a regular “Bear Booth” at the weekly farmer’s market, and provides tip sheets for behavior to keep wildlife safe that are enclosed in city utility bills and newsletters. Residents are advised that all bird feeders must be suspended and out of reach of a clawing bear. Police department volunteer auxiliary officers help patrol garbage cans and dumpsters with weekly driving rounds and provide information to rule-breakers.

While the town has made progress, there are still challenges ahead. More people visited the area during the 2018 season — more than 4.5 million people — than ever before, a trend that is expected to continue, and many tourists are unaware of safe wildlife interaction practices. It’s also an ongoing challenge for wildlife managers and town officials to police the many new small-scale vacation rentals that pop up.

And while chubby black bears awkwardly navigating the ever-intruding human world are undeniably endearing —wildlife encounters frequently go viral online, after all —the best advice wildlife managers offer is painstaking simple: Ignore them and let them be wild.

Paige Blankenbuehler is an assistant editor for High Country News. Email her at paigeb@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. Follow @paigeblank

This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Close encounters .