A black bear was photographed on top of a Waste Management garbage truck in Castle Rock last week after reportedly climbing into a dumpster that was collected and emptied. The bear eventually climbed down and left after nearby business employees scared it away, according to reporting by The Times-Call.
The available video, posted by Evan Elmore in a Castle Rock Facebook group, shows the bear on the truck but does not establish how it got there or what happened after it left. The exact date of the encounter and the bear’s subsequent location also remain unclear; Waste Management had not responded to requests for comment reported Monday.
A statewide increase, with Douglas County among the hardest-hit areas
The truck episode comes amid a sharp rise in reported bear activity across Colorado. The Colorado Parks and Wildlife data cited by The Colorado Sun show 8,672 bear sightings and incident reports through Aug. 31, 2026, compared with 3,680 during the same period in 2025. Those figures combine sightings and incidents; they are not a count of attacks alone.
The increase is also visible near the Denver metro area. Through Aug. 13, Colorado Parks and Wildlife recorded 282 bear encounters in Douglas County, where Castle Rock is located, according to The Denver Post. Jefferson County had 328 encounters, followed by Boulder County with 186, Clear Creek County with 43 and Arapahoe County with 40. County totals cover a different period from the statewide figures, so they are not directly interchangeable.
Weather and food conditions are part of the backdrop
Critically low snowpack, wildfires, a late spring frost and widespread drought have contributed to conditions in which black bears may search more broadly for food, the Aspen Times reported, citing Colorado Parks and Wildlife. That context helps explain why dumpsters and other unsecured trash can become conflict points, but it does not establish the specific reason this bear entered the Castle Rock container.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has also reported a record number of bear attacks in 2026, defining an attack as an incident in which a bear injures or kills a person. That category is separate from the broader count of sightings and incidents, and the Castle Rock encounter, as described in the available reporting, involved no reported human injury.
Urban infrastructure can become a trap
The Castle Rock episode is unusual in its setting but not in showing how human infrastructure can draw or confine bears. In July 2018, wildlife officers in Colorado Springs opened a manhole to free a black bear trapped in a sewer drain, according to KTVQ. The earlier case involved a rescue from below ground, while the Castle Rock video documents a bear on a moving waste vehicle; neither incident by itself demonstrates a broader pattern.
For residents and businesses, the practical issue is access to food waste. Colorado Parks and Wildlife advises keeping trash secured and warns that feeding wildlife can make bears more comfortable around people. In Castle Rock, the video makes the consequence unusually visible: a dumpster encounter ended with a bear riding above the roadway, while leaving unanswered exactly how it entered and where it went next.
