A viral video claiming that a bear was spotted in downtown Denver has accumulated millions of views and thousands of comments discussing wildlife danger in the city. But the animal in the video was actually a beaver, says Miles Ifie, the man who recorded and posted the clip online.
"I knew it was a beaver when I posted," Ifie admits. "I did not think it was a bear."
Ifie says the video, taken on July 1 in Confluence Park, was initially posted on his Instagram story without identifying the animal, prompting an "overwhelming response" from people asking if the animal was a bear. He then reposted the video as a reel with the caption "bear spotted in downtown Denver?!" as a joke, he says.
The original video got 746,000 views on Instagram, spurring reposts across various social media accounts. One Facebook post of the video received over 3.1 million views.
Although the recording is over a month old, it continues to be spread online...along with more misinformation. The popular Denver Now Instagram account reposted the video on August 2, telling the account's more than 60,000 followers that "a bear was spotted in downtown Denver."
But there have been no reports of bear sightings in Denver so far this year, says Kara Van Hoose, spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife's Northeast Region. Denver Animal Protection has also not received any bear reports in the city, says Tammy Vigil, spokesperson for Denver Public Health and Environment.
While bears are sometimes spotted in Aurora, Golden, Littleton and other metro cities, both Van Hoose and Vigil say they've never heard of any actual bear sightings in downtown Denver.
According to Vigil, Denver Animal Protection has "gotten a few calls over the years of people thinking they saw a bear and it almost always turns out to be a raccoon or some other animal."
"Bears should not be found in urban environments," Van Hoose adds. "It would be very unusual for a bear to be in such a populated area. And they would have to come down, most likely, through the Cherry Creek Trail, which would have triggered other sightings and calls to us."
Last month, bears were found crashing the Colorado Renaissance Festival in Douglas County and wandering through a Highlands Ranch neighborhood. In May, a bear was seen in downtown Golden near the Colorado School of Mines. But all of those incidents came with numerous reports to wildlife services, Van Hoose says, unlike the fake bear sighting downtown.
"If it did happen and it was a bear, we would have taken lots of calls about it. This would have been a very noteworthy event. But we didn't take any calls," Van Hoose says. "I haven't heard of a bear ever being spotted in that area."
Van Hoose and Vigil agree the animal in the video appears to be a beaver or another small mammal like a raccoon, both of which are common in Denver. While the zoom of the video makes the animal appear larger, the rocks next to it are only around eight to twelve inches tall, Vigil says.
If anyone does happen to see a bear in downtown Denver, Van Hoose encourages them to report the sighting to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
"You can never really say never in Denver," she says.
