Colorado man films tree 'raining bears' onto the sidewalk

Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A pedestrian in a Colorado resort town captured video of a tree "raining bears" onto the sidewalk while surprised onlookers kept a distance.

Steve Aben posted a video to Facebook showing the mother bear and two cubs descending a tree Sunday in Aspen, to the surprise of several pedestrians.

One man walks around the corner just as the bears appear on the sidewalk and quickly hops backward to keep a safe distance.

"I know it's raining like hell in Florida right now but we be raining bears out of trees up here in Aspen!!" Aben wrote.

Experts said the video may seem cute, but it illustrates a worrying trend of bears losing their fear of humans.

"The first thing I felt was, that's too bad for the bear," Kent Drotar with the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keensburg, Colo., told KUSA-TV. "They will start to come closer. If they're used to receiving food from somebody and someone doesn't give them food, they're going to get frustrated."

He said people who have similar encounters should attempt to scare the bears with loud noises to keep them from wanting to wander into human spaces.

"Do what you can to scare it away and make loud noises," Drotar said. "Make it uncomfortable for the animal to be there."