Boulder volunteers harvest local fruit trees to prevent bear incursions

BOULDER, Colo. — Using a telescoping pole, Jordan Banfield pried pears from a backyard fruit tree and sorted them into baskets.

A pile of bear scat confirmed that Banfield, 23, and fellow volunteer fruit pickers with Community Fruit Rescue were not the first to pick fruit from this tree. 

“In the last seven or eight years, we've had bears in our yard at least once a season,” said the home’s owner, Christa Mayer, who lives in the Carolyn Heights neighborhood. “Two days ago, one came over from the yard east of us and ate a bunch of pears.” 

Bears that spend too much time in town put people and themselves in danger. Earlier this month, a bear attacked a man walking his dog in Boulder. Research shows that bears are traveling further east in the city to previously unoccupied habitat. Trash and fruit trees are the biggest lures, highlighting the importance of the work people like Banfield are doing.  

Since 2014, Community Fruit Rescue has helped hundreds of residents like Mayer harvest fruit trees in an effort to prevent interactions with bears. Last year, volunteers picked more than 50,000 pounds of fruit at 175 sites. 

Bears “have beautiful habitat in the foothills. They have abundant things to forage on there,” said Melanie Hill, executive director of Community Fruit Rescue. “By removing this, we're actually keeping them a lot safer.”