Most of the videos you’ll see on YouTube highlighting human/black bear confrontations involve young bears. The reasons are part math — there are simply more young bears than old ones — and part animal science — young bears are typically more curious and less cautious.
In the 50-second YouTube video below, however, the bear captured on a hotel security camera in Aspen, Colorado, is a giant. Here’s the background.
According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), people reported seeing a black bear inside the kitchen of the St. Regis Aspen Resort at around 11 p.m. As the video below shows, a security guard responds, and while he’s being cautious, luck is not on his side when he steps around a corner in the kitchen area and comes face to face — literally — with a massive black bear.
From a hunter’s perspective, this is a black bear of a lifetime, a true giant boar. Notice its massive shoulders, the large crease in its forehead, and overall width. The bear has to weigh at least 400 pounds.
The video doesn’t show what happened around the corner, but the bear was likely walking toward the corner at exactly the time the security guard appeared. The bear must have immediately risen on its hind legs, stepped toward the retreating guard, and then swatted him with one of its front paws.
Luckily for the guard, the bear stood its ground after throwing the first punch, then quickly retreated. This allowed the startled man to pick himself off the kitchen floor and run for safety. The guard called 911 and was taken to a hospital where he was treated for scratches on his back.
So what happened to this bear?
According to CPW staff, not long after the encounter, wildlife officers located the bear near the hotel, but due to public safety concerns they weren’t able to safely tranquilize and capture it. Some 20 hours later, officers located the bear a few blocks away in a city park. With the help of law enforcement, they watched the bear, looking for identifiable markings — namely a distinctive white patch located on the bear's chest. Eventually they hazed the bear into a tree in the park around 2 a.m. Wildlife officers tranquilized the bear, then extracted it from the tree with help of an Aspen fire truck.
“During our initial investigation, we gathered witness statements along with photos and videos from hotel security cameras,” said Matt Yamashita, area wildlife manager. “All played an important part in our investigation. Using the footage provided by the hotel, we were able to confirm the aggressive behavior of the bear and identify unique physical characteristics of the bear that assisted in the proper identification of the offending bear.”
Now this fact from the bear pursuit surprised me: Wildlife officers said that while searching for this particular boar, eight other black bears were seen moving around downtown Aspen. Eight!
Per CPW policy, the boar was removed from the area and then euthanized.
