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By Jamie Edmonds 
 
People aren't the only ones who lost their homes in the Waldo Canyon Fire, animals did too.
 
For the most part, people aren't noticing deer or elk roaming their neighborhoods, but in Green Mountain Falls, bears did begin to make themselves at home.
 
"We walked out, and there was a huge bear standing close to us," Hannah Worthey said.
Last Sunday night, Worthey and her friend were walking across the Joyland parking lot to get a snack, when they spotted a bear they feared was pretty hungry himself.

"You're afraid it might charge, she said. "It's scary."

Worthey, who is the daughter of the mayor of Green Mountain Falls, Lorrie Worthey, made it inside without incident. It seems a lot of residents of Green Mountain falls and the surrounding areas are spotting these animals in places they shouldn't be.

"It's pretty scary because they're pretty big, a few hundred pounds, looking for something to eat," Kathy Cotton, a resident of Woodland Park said. "You don't want it to be you."

Michael Seraphin of Colorado Parks and Wildlife said it's simply because bears are "oportunistic."

"The issue is when everyone left for the evacuations, they just left; there was no trash pickup," Seraphin said. "It was kind of a perfect storm, the bears finding food to eat, with no people around to chase them out. There was no reason to leave."

Seraphin said while the bears were always around, leftover trash and spoiled food was not.  So he said, if there was ever a time to use bear proof cans, it's now.

So as families return to their homes and neighborhoods, get rid of trash and food ASAP. That way, these unwanted guests will soon move on.