ASPEN, Colo.—
When photojournalist Noah Skinner and I arrived in Aspen last Wednesday night, it wasn't yet dark. Our ride-along with Aspen Police was still an hour away, so we decided to grab some dinner at the Hickory House on Main Street.We had no idea that the barbecue pits and trash dumpsters out back, now enclosed by a corrugated metal fence, is visited by hungry bears as often as anywhere else in town.
"You're not the only one who can smell those ribs," Sgt. Ron Fabrocini told us later that night, as we circled through the Hickory House parking lot to check the dumpsters. "The bears are eating up to 20 hours a day right now, trying to pack on the weight before they hibernate for the winter. So they're looking for food everywhere -- in dumpsters, trash cans, berry trees, you name it."
Over the seven hours we rode with Fabrocini and Ofc. Leon Murray, we saw more than a dozen bears.
The first was in a tree, not because he was eating but because a crowd or perhaps a police officer had chased him up it. Later, we found a giant black bear feasting on crabapples in a tree outside the Hotel Aspen. We soon realized, that bear was one of at least five bears foraging in the treetops that surround the hotel.
"These bears aren't doing anything wrong, they're eating what they're supposed to eat," Fabrocini said. "But I'm a little worried about their location."
Especially worrisome, the two red tags on the ears of the biggest bear, signifying that the Dept. of Wildlife has already encountered that animal twice.
"If he gets in trouble again, he's done," Fabrocini said. "They'd have to put him down. That's why I don't want to stir him up. Hopefully, we can keep things quiet over here and he'll just leave on his own."
He did, but not before Fabrocini had to escort two late-arriving hotel guests to their room while the bears chomped on berries just a few feet above the sidewalk.
"People who are visiting, it's like a zoo," said Hotel Aspen owner Michael Brown. "It's very fascinating to them. This is a 500 pound animal and you'd think people would run the other way. They don't. They actually run to it."
When we finally left the Hotel Aspen, we were driving through downtown when we saw a bear on the run, darting away from a barking dog through an intersection and down a sidewalk. That bear, appearing to be at least 350 pounds, wandered through a back alley and around an old church before winding up on the edge of Main Street. After looking both ways, the bear galloped across all four lanes.
"He's jaywalking right in front of the courthouse," said Murray. "Pretty bold. But not unusual. This town is a zoo without walls."
We saw Murray use a loud air horn to startle the bear away from the street.
"You don't want them to be comfortable, you want them to be startled," Murray said. "The idea is that they'll keep moving and go somewhere less busy. But, he'll probably be back. In this town, there's so many bears, and they all find trouble right around the corner."
Or, in one bear's case, right through the patio door.
It was nearly 2 a.m. when Ed Hudson reported a bear inside his house. Hudson and his wife were secure upstairs but could hear the bear in their kitchen. By the time we got there, the bear was outside, heading away with a plastic bag of Hudson's leftover pork chops.
Murray and another officer disappeared into the darkness behind the house and then, suddenly, a gunshot cracked like a whip on the quiet.
It was a tiny bean bag, fired into the bear's body to startle it enough that it will run off.
"It's not to hurt the bear, just to get it out of here," Murray said.
But, once bears are brazen enough to break into people's homes, there's not a lot that can be done to rehabilitate them -- to make them more accustomed to the wild, and less comfortable around people.
"If we trap the bear early, we can relocate them," said the Dept. of Wildlife's Randy Hampton. "That's why it's important that people report these bears the first time they see them, not wait until the bear walks into their kitchen."
Most Aspen residents know by now to put away the things that attract bears -- bird feeders, BBQ pits, pet food -- and to lock up their trash. But, many are reluctant to report bears to officials -- what Hampton calls "a cultural thing.
"People like the bears, they like to have them around; so they will tolerate the presence of bears, when in reality, the best thing they could do for those bears is yell at them and throw rocks at them and chase them off. Train those bears not to be comfortable around people," Hampton said. "They want to see if up close and personal. But that selfish reaction, unfortunately, leads to bears being killed."
"We've got to get past the selfish thing of wanting to see them and move to wanting to save them."
