Bears in the 'Burbs?

More people are having close encounters. Blame climate change, habitat destruction and...birdseed?

- by BETHANY BROOKSHIRE

It was October 2023 when Rebecca Boyle, now 44, a science journalist and book author in Colorado Springs, learned that a bear could open her front door. It was around 10:00 p.m., and she and her husband were getting ready for bed. Their daughters, then 8 and 2, were safely asleep. Then, out of nowhere, their doorbell camera went off, pinging her husband's phone.

The video showed a black bear at the storm door, which wasn't locked. “The bear walked up, sniffed the door, stood up on its hind legs, turned the door latch and pulled it open,” Rebecca says. Her husband raced to the front door, and the bear fled.

That wasn't the family’s first close encounter with a bear: Right after they had moved to their new development, in spring 2020, a bear had walked into the open garage after Rebecca had brought in the groceries. "It opened my car door and slobbered all over the seat,” she says. Rebecca had seen the video on her phone and hit the panic button on her car key fob. “The bear ran away at full speed,” she recalls.

Many people across the United States are, like Rebecca, encountering more black bears more often, especially in forested areas. The bears are sauntering into backyards, garages, even kitchens. They aren't there to attack humans—they’re there to haul down bird feeders, raid trash cans, rip into chicken coops and even raid fridges for ice cream.

Shorter Winter Naps

Like many species that have been displaced by people, bears were here first. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before we had laws about hunting, humans hunted them out of many parts of the East Coast and the Midwest. But as forests regrow, bears are coming back—except that what was once just forest is now full of subdivisions.