A small bear cub was discovered inside the Aspen Middle School cafeteria on Monday, according to the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office. The bear was secure inside the lunchroom, while students and staff were reported unharmed or in danger.

“While some kids are tough to get out of bed and going on Monday mornings, that was not the case for this little bear,” according to a Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office Facebook post. “Sometime Monday morning, a small black bear cub found its way into Aspen School District Middle School and ended up sniffing its way into the school’s cafeteria.”

Upon the bear’s discovery, all students were sent safely elsewhere on campus while the Aspen Police Department, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the sheriff’s office helped remove the little cub from the school, according to the sheriff’s office.

“It’s a small cub, and it wandered its way throughout the school, and it eventually found the cafeteria — just the place where the kids eat at,” Pitkin County Chief Deputy of Operations Parker Lathrop said. “It wound up getting stuck in the cafeteria.”

According to Lathrop, students were taken to the Aspen High School gym during the bear’s removal. Lathrop said the bear could have entered through a door that was left unlocked after Friday’s Aspen High School football game, as the middle school is used for visitor restrooms and team locker rooms.

The cub was found alone without a mother bear, Lathrop said.

“We were made aware of (the bear) shortly before 7 a.m. and then by 9:30 students were back in the middle school,” he said. 

The Aspen School District said on Monday that the Aspen Middle School lunch team reported the bear cub in the middle school cafeteria at about 6:30 a.m. Law enforcement was notified, along with district administrators and school resource officers. 

“When school buses and students began arriving, a team of administrators and teachers directed all AMS students and staff to report to the Aspen High School gym,” Aspen School District Communications Specialist Monica Mendoza said in an email. “Aspen Elementary School was put into a SECURE, which means teachers and students remained in the school and it was business as usual in classrooms.” 

Colorado Parks and Wildlife arrived, sedated and removed the cub, Mendoza said. 

“The entire AMS building was ‘swept’ by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and law enforcement to ensure there were no other animals inside the building (there were not) while at the same time the ASD Facilities Team cleaned and disinfected the lunchroom,” she said in the email.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Rachael Gonzales said the school district first reported that a sow and a cub were found in the school on Sunday. The district did not respond to a request for comment about Sunday’s sighting of the bears inside the school.

“So this and another cub got into the school through an open door,” she said. “The sow and one other cub did get out yesterday; however, this one cub did not get out.”

Monday’s discovered cub, about an 8-month-old female, was tranquilized and given a quick health evaluation by Parks and Wildlife agents.

“It’s a female and in really good health,” Gonzales said. “So because of that, we have relocated the cub to a much more appropriate bear habitat … Our goal is to take them someplace where they have less of a risk of (human-bear conflicts) and a higher risk of surviving.”

The bear cub was not reunited with the sow, Gonzales said.

“At this age, if we do get cubs that are abandoned, or we don’t find them with the sow nearby, we often just rerelease them anyways,” she said. “Because they’re old enough that they can survive in the wild on their own.”

According to Gonzales, this year is a “food failure” for bears, meaning there is less to forage. She said in this situation bears, typically trying to consume up to 20,000 calories a day before hibernation, are then more likely to scavenge for food through dumpsters and buildings.

“They look to consume 5,000 calories in five minutes,” she said.

According to an Aspen School District post, Aspen Middle School students turned the bear’s visit into a learning experience.

“AMS students tried to figure out the size of the bear based on the dimensions of the trash/recycling cans,” the district post states.

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The Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office reminds people to secure all doors and windows overnight and when not at home, as local bears are preparing for their upcoming winter hibernation.

“We’re trying to remind people that bears are about to go in hibernation,” Lathrop said. “This year has not been a great year in terms of wild berries. So they’re really going to start looking for food in human areas, homes, cars, buildings.”

This story is from AspenTimes.com