City of Golden Bear Aware Event - September 1, 2026
City of Golden Bear Aware Event - September 1, 2026
On September 1, 2026, at 1:00 PM, the City of Golden hosted a Bear Aware community event at an unspecified location. Management Analyst Claire welcomed attendees, introduced Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) District Wildlife Manager Philip Sorensen as the primary presenter, and noted the presence of city sustainability staff to discuss trash management. The event was live-streamed and recorded for later viewing.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Residents raised multiple concerns and shared strategies: one asked for more bear signage in parks (e.g., Mason Meadows); another shared success with water gel blasters and pop-it balloons for hazing; a resident expressed concern about safely hazing bears and asked the city to distribute safety guidance; a parent described bears coming within inches of children and asked for paintball gun recommendations for marking bears; a landlord committed to adding bear-related lease clauses; a resident advocated for an online reporting tool for bear sightings; a resident asked whether bears eat dog feces; a resident suggested the city add bear information to its trash webpage; two residents discussed the effectiveness of latches and ratchet straps on trash carts.
Discussion Items
- Bear Biology and Conflict Prevention (Philip Sorensen): Philip detailed black bear biology (only species in Colorado, color phases, hyperphagia, diet, and reproduction). He emphasized that 2026 is the worst bear conflict year in 20 years due to drought, late frost leading to near-100% mast failure, and habitat encroachment. He outlined key attractants (trash, bird feeders, grills, pet food, fruit trees) and urged residents to secure attractants, store trash in garages until service day, and use aversive conditioning (air horns, paintball guns, bear spray, motion lights, radios). He warned against BB/pellet guns and stressed that relocation is rarely effective (bears often return within days). He also mentioned a new state law (effective August 12, 2026) that lowers the mental state for feeding big game to “knowingly,” with fines up to $2,000–$5,000 on a third offense.
- Trash Management (City Sustainability Manager): The manager demonstrated bear-resistant cart latches and locks (available at Amazon or through the city’s trash program covering about 60% of residents). He recommended cleaning carts with ammonia to deter bears, storing carts in garages or sheds, and putting extra bagged trash out only on service day. The city plans to apply for a CPW grant in May to purchase a limited supply of bear-resistant carts.
- Hazing Tools and Safety: Philip recommended avoiding any unsafe confrontation; hazing can be done from inside a home or via car alarms. He advised using bear spray (fog type for general targeting, stream for precise shots) and cautioned about wind and residual effect. He reiterated that electricity is the most effective solution for permanent structures like chicken coops.
Key Outcomes
- The City of Golden will apply for a CPW grant to fund bear-resistant trash carts for residents.
- Residents were encouraged to modify their existing carts with aftermarket latches (city-approved drill modifications) or use ratchet straps.
- CPW will consider adding more bear signage in areas like Mason Meadows upon request.
- The city will explore adding bear-safety information to its trash webpage and potentially developing an online reporting tool for bear sightings.
- Attendees were reminded to report bears showing aggression or entering homes to CPW (phone number provided) or call 911 for emergencies, though response times may be 2–3 hours.
- No formal votes were taken; the event was purely educational.
Meeting Transcript
Alright, everybody, can you hear me okay? Okay. Um, I'm Claire. I am a management analyst with the city. Um, and we want to welcome you all to our bearware event. We've got Philip Sorensen here who is from CPW. It's gonna be running through a presentation, answering some questions. Um, our community services team is here as well. Um, and our sustainability manager is here to talk about trash. Um so run through the presentation and then we'll do a bit of a QA. If you have a question for the QA, we are gonna ask that you go to the mic, um, just because we're live streaming, um, and it's not gonna pick up on your voices when you're shouting from the audience. Um if you have mobility issues or if you um feel like you can't make it back there, just wave your hand to me and I'll bring you a mic. Um, but yeah, we should be good to get started. This will be available, um, recorded online. We'll post, so feel free to share afterward, and yeah, I'll hand it over to Philip. All right. Thank you. Can everybody hear me all right? Yes. All righty. My name is Philip. I'm one of the local wildlife officers or district wildlife managers for the golden area. Um, you guys are kind of in a nexus where we have some different staff that all come into play. So if you're on the west end of town, you may be a completely different group of officers. I cover highway 58 north and highway 93 east. So I cover Golden Out to Brighton. Um, our current more southern golden officer is currently vacant, but should be filled here in January. So we'll have a new officer uh in place there. Um, Golden Id, I kind of just want to give some general bear information. I usually start off with some general bear knowledge, biology, what drives a bear, and then we kind of get into some conflict, some solutions. Um, and then at the end, hopefully we've got some time for some questions if we need to get anything wrapped up there, and there may be some other folks that jump in at different points. We all good. Right. I'm sorry, you're gonna have to crane your neck, so uh just to jump to the side here. But um, first one I always start off with because we get endless calls about a grizzly bear or a panda bear in my backyard. In Colorado, we only have one species of bear, and that is Ursus Americanis, which is the American black bear. But as you can see, they come in all different color phases. That's what we call them. So that top one would be more of a cinnamon color. Um, that one down below we kinda we call it kind of a grizzled cinnamon brown. The jet black is what is most synonymous, uh, obviously with their name. And then over there on the far side, we've got more of a blonde face. And we get them in all different mixes, and you'll see sows that are jet black and their cubs may be all different colors. Um, but just wanted to start clarifying that. We don't have any grizzly bears in Colorado. Those were extirpated from the state back in the 1970s. Um, they're pretty different for the most part. Um we don't have them here in Colorado, and I don't want to dwell on it too long, but just looking at anatomy, black bears have much shorter, more curved claws. That's really helpful for climbing trees, which is really helpful when you're trying to evade a grizzly bear, which is the one on the other side. Those big claws are used for digging, rolling over rocks.
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