A black bear caused a stir in Cheyenne early Tuesday when it was spotted wandering around the east side of town. It tried taking shelter in a resident’s barn, but was found there and safely captured.
Karolyn Middleton, who owns the property where the bear was found, told Cowboy State Daily that a Cheyenne police officer came to her door early Tuesday and told her the bear was discovered hiding in her barn.
Police and Wyoming Game and Fish personnel responded, and spent about an hour and a half tranquilizing and securing the bear, she said.
“They told me it was probably a young bear that had been pushed out a little way,” said Karolyn Middleton, who owns roughly nine acres on the rural outskirts of Cheyenne.
Black Bears Expanding Range
Black bears are rarely seen in the Cheyenne area. In September 2023, first responders rescued a bear with an injured paw that had climbed a tree in a city park.
It was later determined the bear’s injury was mild enough, it still had a good chance of surviving in the wild, and Game and Fish set it free again in the Snowy Range mountains.
Black bears have been expanding their territory, Game and Fish large carnivore specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily.
“I hate to say things are impossible, because wildlife continues to adapt and surprise us,” he said. “But black bears evolved with forested ecosystems, and in the last half-century or less we have started seeing expansions of black bears back into previous haunts in North America, or more appropriately recolonization."
Bears can disperse through prairie habitat, if there are forested areas or riparian corridors available, Thompson said.
However, “we should not expect them making a living in a patch of buffalograss in a vast sea of short grass prairie. They will use those riparian corridors to disperse as well,” he said.
‘They Took Their Time’
The Cheyenne Police Department put out a wildlife alert early Tuesday, stating that a black bear had been spotted near Whitney Road and the 6000 block of East Pershing Boulevard.
The police later announced that the bear had been captured, without injuries to the bear or people and that the animal was “in the care of the wildlife experts with the Wyoming Game and Fish.”
As of publication time, Game and Fish hadn’t stated whether the bear had been released back into the wild.
Middleton said she wasn’t frightened by the thought of a black bear on her property. And she appreciated how mindful police and Game and Fish agents were about the bear’s well-being.
“They were all concerned about the bear and didn’t want to rush anything with him. They really took their time with him,” she said.
The bear had apparently climbed into a hay loft in her barn, she said.
“It was dark up there, and the bear probably thought that was a good place to hide,” she said.
She figured the bear chose her barn because it seemed like a quiet, safe place.
“I think he was just really tired and was looking for a place to hide and rest,” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
