A black bear was spotted wandering through a Fairfax County neighborhood, digging through trash cans as it moved along residential streets. Police responded by urging residents in the Northern Virginia community to exercise caution around the animal.
FOX 5 DC captured video of the bear making its way through the area and rooting through trash cans along the way.
Encounters like this one are not common in Fairfax County, but they do happen. Wildlife officials say there are typically at least some bear sightings every spring and summer as the animals search residential neighborhoods for food, according to FFXnow. Black bears and cubs typically emerge from their winter dens in Virginia between mid-March and early May, per the Fairfax County Police Department's animal control division.
What Draws Bears Into Backyards
Bears may wander into suburban areas simply in search of food, according to the Fairfax County Police Department's animal control division. Items as ordinary as bird feeders, garbage, outdoor pet food, compost piles, fruit trees and berry-producing shrubs can all draw a hungry bear toward a house.
Fairfax County's wildlife guidance also points to a broader factor behind these run-ins: as human populations grow, residential development has been encroaching into forested lands and habitats that wildlife have historically used, according to the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Black bears are now documented in at least 92 of Virginia's 98 counties and cities, based on recreational sightings, hunter harvest records, road kills and field reports compiled by the agency.
A Similar Scene Played Out in Herndon Last Year
Fairfax County has seen this kind of encounter escalate before. In June 2025, a black bear was spotted roaming near Alabama Drive and Hillwood Court in Herndon, north of Haley M. Smith Park, the same FFXnow report noted. That bear, a male yearling being tracked with a collar by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, eventually climbed a tree, prompting police to close the 800 block of Elden Street in both directions.
A wildlife biologist ultimately tranquilized the roughly 1-year-old bear while it was in the tree; the animal later fell from the tree and was placed in a bear trap, according to NBC4 Washington. Officials later released it at a Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources wildlife management area. Maryland wildlife officials said the Herndon bear was the same animal that had been spotted in a Bethesda neighborhood just weeks earlier, in late May. A Herndon police spokesperson called sightings like that one very rare, estimating it was only the second such encounter during her eight years with the department. Officers nicknamed that bear Elden, after the street where it later climbed a tree.
Who Handles a Bear in Your Yard
The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, not local police, is the agency responsible for deciding how to resolve conflicts between people and bears, according to the Fairfax County News Center. Unless a bear poses a direct threat to public safety, Fairfax County Police and Fairfax County Animal Services do not remove bears from neighborhoods themselves. Removal is treated as a last resort and typically follows cases of intentional or unintentional feeding, per Fairfax County's wildlife guidance.
The Fairfax County Police Department has previously estimated that three to four active bears live in the county, though officials caution that no formal count has ever been conducted. During the 2025 Herndon incident, police told residents not to approach the animal while wildlife officials monitored its location, a response pattern consistent with this week's advisory for residents to steer clear and let officials assess the situation.
