A Colorado black bear is making a stir on the internet after it was filmed dangling from the window of a two-story home in the town of Steamboat Springs. According to local news reports, the bear had a history of breaking into homes and garages. It eventually exited the home through a different window on the ground level, but not before helping itself to some of the homeowner’s pork chops and ransacking a snack pantry. Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) later euthanized the animal.
Residents of the Blue Sage and Harwig Circle neighborhoods in Steamboat Spring have reported multiple run-ins with the yearling black bear this summer, Steamboat Radio reports. On Tuesday June 20, CPW agents Kyle Bond and Jonathon Lambert captured it in a live trap near the campus of Colorado Mountain College.
“When a bear enters a home, it gets put down,” Bond told Steamboat Radio in an interview that aired yesterday. “That’s why we are trying to reach out and spend time talking to people and inform them why it is important to secure ground level windows and doors and beyond that all doors and windows that are accessible by stairs, decks, trees.”
An eye-witness said the bear was trying to exit the home when she filmed it clinging to the upper-level window—but it never made the jump. Instead, it climbed back in and locked itself into the home’s master bedroom.
“The [responding police] officer actually opened the door to the bedroom so that the bear could get out,” homeowner Ryan McFarlane later told FOX 31. McFarlane wasn’t home when the bear broke in.
“I was definitely anxious to get there, and the thought was going through my mind that there were going to be thousands and thousands of dollars in damage,” he said. “That wasn’t the case this time. Grateful that he was a respectful house guest.”
Related: Colorado Man Fires .40 Cal Glock 9 Times to Kill Black Bear That Broke Into His House at Night
Respectful or not, black bears are causing issues in Steamboat Springs this year. The bear in the video was the fourth to be euthanized in the area since January 2023. All four of those cases involved bears breaking into people’s homes. In August 2022, a man shot and killed a black bear with a pistol in the middle of the night after it entered his home through an unlocked door.
In statement on its website, CPW says that “any bear that poses a risk to human health and safety, or is known to have caused previous conflict activity” can be euthanized in accordance with CPW directives. The bear in this case will be donated to an outdoor sportswoman’s group, CPW spokeswoman Kris Middledorf told Steamboat Radio, “for further education with field dressing and meat processing.”
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