A black bear that got stuck in a basement window well in Falcon, Colorado, turned a neighborhood scare into an unusual rescue, according to KKTV.
When resident Kristen Nedbalek got home, she found the 113-kilogram bear sitting outside her basement window in the narrow well below. Neighbors gathered as the bear stayed calm and even appeared to nap.
“We’re all just kind of standing around in the basement, just watching it in the window,” Nedbalek told KKTV. “It was just very surreal.”
As wildlife officers worked on a rescue plan above the window well, Nedbalek said the bear stayed relaxed.
“It would just kind of wake up, look around, and just kind of start knocking off again,” Nedbalek said. “It was doing this really cute thing where it was just like, kind of holding on to its back leg, kind of like a cat does.”
Wildlife officers had already issued a bear watch after earlier sightings in the area.
Officials later tranquilized the bear, brought it into the house through the basement window, and removed it through the front door for relocation. Colorado Parks and Wildlife then gave the bear a reversal drug and transported it to what the source described as a more suitable habitat.
For Nedbalek, the encounter came just after learning her grandfather had died.
“It certainly seemed like it was his way of saying goodbye, since I wasn’t able to say goodbye to him,” she told KKTV. “Four minutes after I found out, I got a text saying, ‘Hey, we have a visitor at our house.’ So, I come home … And there’s just this bear sitting down here in our window.”
Read more from KKTV.
