There's a Bear in Your Trash. Here's What to Do.

Right Now: A Bear Is in Your Trash Can

The steps below come from BearWise's page for a bear in your yard and its hazing rules. Your safety comes first, and the trash can is not worth going outside for.

After the Bear Leaves: Cleanup and Attractants

BearWise gives three steps once the bear is gone. Walk around your house and property to find what attracted it, remove all attractants because the bear may return if it found anything edible, and alert your neighbors so they can remove theirs too.

BearWise lists these common attractants to look for: trash or smelly garbage cans, bird feeders, a dirty grill, a compost pile, ripening fruit, pet food, and backyard chickens. If you find any of them, our guides cover feeders, coops, beehives, and compost and keeping bears away from your house and yard.

The can itself

Colorado Parks & Wildlife says to clean your trash can with bleach once a week to remove lingering smells, and never to mix bleach and ammonia, because the fumes can be deadly. BearWise says to rinse cans, bottles, and food containers, including carry-out boxes, so odors do not attract bears. We did not find a step-by-step cleanup procedure for spilled trash on the agency pages we read, so check with your waste hauler or local wildlife office if the mess is large.

The Next 72 Hours: A Checklist

No agency we read publishes a 72-hour plan. This checklist puts their separate pieces of advice into an order you can work through over the first few days.

• Tonight: Put any can that is not bear-resistant inside a sturdy building. BearWise says to keep a non-bear-resistant can in a sturdy building until pickup morning, and Colorado says to keep trash indoors overnight. If the can is bear-resistant, BearWise says to keep it closed and latched.
• Walk the property: Check the attractants listed above, including pet food, grills, and feeders, and remove them (BearWise).
• Talk to neighbors: BearWise and Alaska Fish and Game both say to tell neighbors a bear has been in the area so they can secure their trash too.
• Pickup morning: BearWise says to set containers out the morning of pickup, never the night before. It also suggests keeping smelly items in a freezer bag until that morning.
• Keep the habit going: BearWise says to haul garbage and recycling to an approved disposal site at least once a week to prevent odor buildup.
• If the bear returns anyway: BearWise says to call the wildlife agency if a bear stays after hazing. See the next section.

Who to Report a Bear in Your Trash To

BearWise says to call your wildlife agency if the bear seems agitated, sick, or injured, approaches people, or stays after you have scared it. In an emergency, call 911: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee both say so. Montana adds that seeing a bear is not automatically reportable, but aggressive or defensive behavior toward people, livestock, or pets, or damage to property, is.

Which office to call depends on your state. BearWise keeps a directory of state wildlife agencies with each state's bear page and, where listed, a phone number or reporting form: BearWise state agency directory. A few examples we checked on agency pages:

• Colorado: Parks & Wildlife says to call the nearest regional or area office for wildlife conflicts, and lists the offices on its contact page. For an after-hours emergency, the same page lists the Colorado State Patrol at 303-239-4500.
• New Jersey: The directory lists the Department of Environmental Protection's 24-hour, toll-free hotline for black bear damage or nuisance behavior: 1-877-WARN DEP (1-877-927-6337).
• Montana: Fish, Wildlife & Parks says to contact the nearest bear management specialist and lists them by town on its bear conflict contact page.
• Alaska: Fish and Game says that for a bear around your home, you can call your local Fish and Game office for advice on fixing what is attracting it. Office locations are linked from its bear conflict page.
• Nevada: The Department of Wildlife lists a bear line, 775-688-BEAR (2327), on its living with bears page. It presents the line for questions and concerns, so ask whether your situation is something to report there.

Phone numbers and offices change. Confirm on the agency's own page before you rely on one. If your trash is a local-ordinance issue, such as a neighbor leaving cans out, your city or county may be the right contact. Colorado says leaving trash cans where bears can reach them violates state law and some local ordinances, and our guide to bear attractant laws by state covers what we have verified elsewhere.

How to Get Rid of Bears for Good: Stop the Repeat Visits

You cannot make a bear stop smelling your trash, so the agencies we read all point the same way: take away the food. BearWise says garbage and recycling should be stored where bears cannot smell or reach them, in either a bear-resistant container or a bear-resistant building. Alaska Fish and Game says bears that learn to eat human food keep returning to neighborhoods until the food runs out or they are killed, and Colorado says bears that get used to food near homes will keep returning and may need to be killed. Securing the trash protects the bear too.

Use a container that was tested on bears

BearWise calls certified bear-resistant containers the preferred option. It says the products that passed testing are listed by two US programs, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee and the Wildlife Management Institute, and that both use captive bears that try to defeat the products. Ask your waste provider whether it offers them. If it does not, you can buy your own, but confirm first that the provider will service it and whether the lid must be unlatched for pickup.

• Browse certified carts on our bear-proof trash cans page, or take the finder quiz for a shortlist.
• Already own a cart? See the certified retrofit locks and covers. Each is certified only on the cart it was tested with.
• Prefer to hide the can? A bear-proof enclosure is one of the options BearWise lists, with durable construction and either multiple latches or an auto-locking mechanism.
• Want to check a product's status? See certified products and how we verify.

Modifying a can you already own

BearWise says some cans can be made black-bear resistant with local materials, after you get your waste provider's permission. It says to use four buckled nylon straps or metal hasps, that stretchy rubber straps do not work, and to secure the can so a bear cannot tip it over and work it open. Homemade fixes are not certified. For more, see our guide to DIY bear-resistant trash storage.

For the full trash playbook, see how to keep bears out of your trash. If raccoons or other animals are the bigger worry, see animal-proof trash cans.

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