On an unseasonably warm October afternoon, a 3-year-old black bear climbed up a tree on University Hill and decided to take a nap. But while the bear slept peacefully among the branches, Brenda Lee and Betsy Heppner were on high alert at the base of the tree.
“Sir, could you come over to this side,” Heppner urged a passerby who, in an effort to get a better picture of the bear, positioned himself directly below the animal’s backside. “You can see him well from this angle.”
As “bear sitters,” Lee and Heppner are two of the volunteers who are called upon when one of Boulder’s furry visitors clambers up a tree.
Equipped with pots, pans and rattles to make noise, Lee and Heppner’s objective is to keep the bear up in the tree until nightfall, when it will hopefully climb down and wander into the foothills to the west.
“The goal is to keep the bear safe and keep the community safe,” Lee said. “As long as it’s in the tree, it’s not getting into trouble.”
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