GOLDEN, Colo. — Wildlife officers pulled out all the stops to get a stubborn bear out of a tree in Golden this week, and even a visit from the Prince of Darkness wasn't enough to change its mind.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) posted on social media that the black bear was the subject of a stakeout near the Colorado School of Mines campus on Tuesday. It had gotten into trash and found food, and by the time wildlife officers got there, it was already up a tree, asleep.
"The wait begins," the post said.
CPW said its plan was to haze, or scare, the bear when it came down in hopes that it would be uncomfortable around humans and would not return to look for more trash. They had no such luck.
Five hours later, the bear came down, and wildlife officers managed to scare the bear in the right direction toward "wilder spaces." But the bear just ended up climbing another tree.
"Why bear, why," CPW wrote.
That's when they deployed a drone with the help of Golden Police to see whether an unfamiliar noise from above would make the bear climb down.
The bear was "slightly annoyed" by the drone, CPW said. Then they decided to blast music at the bear. That music was Black Sabbath.
The bear, perhaps a fan of classic rock, still refused to move. The post said that based on past bear behavior, they knew it was probably not going to move until dark. That was what ended up happening, as the bear finally came down at night when almost all the humans were gone.
There were some takeaway lessons from the ordeal, CPW said:
- Keep your trash inside until the morning of trash day. The bear ate trash left out in the neighborhood the night before. You can save a bear's life by keeping it away from trash.
- Bears are cute but are still very much wild animals.
- Black bears don't mind Black Sabbath.
CPW has more information about living in bear country on its website.
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