A bear got stuck in a Colorado storm drain — and escaped through a manhole, video shows
Wildlife officers in Colorado successfully scared a bear out of a storm water drain on Thursday after the animal got stuck.
The bear — about 250 pounds, according to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Agency — is seen sticking its head out of a manhole, looking around “for an escape route” and climbing out, in a video posted the agency posted on Twitter.
The bear, believed to be 3 or 4 years old the agency reported, then takes off running toward a wooded area behind some homes as wildlife officers holler after the animal and fire one “non-lethal rubber slug.”
That video is among several tweets posted by the agency documenting the incident in its southeast region.
It started in the late afternoon on a rainy day.
Someone spotted the sad-looking bear peering out of a storm drain in a Colorado Springs neighborhood.
Officers from Colorado Parks and Wildlife pondered how they could set the bear free.
They wanted to avoid “handling” the bear because, as the agency explained on Twitter, “Once it’s handled, it gets an ear tag. That’s one strike against it. If it was ever handled again it would have to be euthanized.”
So they came up with a different plan.
“With no obvious exit available,” the agency wrote, a worker from Colorado Springs Utilities arrived and opened a manhole cover to give the bear an opportunity to escape.
The agency then said it would “haze” the bear in an effort to discourage the animal from returning to the neighborhood.
Armed with a shotgun holding non-lethal rubber slugs, the wildlife officers waited for the bear to make its exit, the agency said.
As they waited, residents in the area, described as a “senior community,” were told to remain in their homes.
It took a few minutes, but photos from the agency’s Twitter showed the bear poking its head out.
Within seconds, the bear fled from the storm drain.
No one seems to know how the bear got there. But the agency later tweeted its suspicions that the bear was attracted to what was found inside an open dumpster.
“Why did this bear pick this storm drain in this neighborhood? Within eyesight maybe a hundred yards away, @COParksWildlife officers found an open garbage receptacle filled with garbage and branches from a tree filled with berries,” the tweet said.
On its website, the agency explains bears are typically “destroyed,” or euthanized, if they become too comfortable coming around humans and their property for food.
Bill Vogrin, a spokesman with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, emphasized the importance of residents securing their trash bins in an interview with The Colorado Springs Gazette.
“We don’t want to punish a bear for (people) not securing their garbage,” Vogrin told The Gazette after Thursday’s incident. “That’s a reason we hate this, it’s incumbent that the neighborhood secures their garbage.”
This story was originally published July 27, 2018 at 1:14 PM.