Can you imagine going inside a Fry\u2019s grocery store at around six in the morning, and being told by a fellow shopper that there\u2019s a bear inside the store? Well that was the reality for Charlie Alolkoy on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just didn\u2019t believe it. I just thought this guy\u2019s drunk,\u201d he said about the man who told him.<\/p>\n
While some were scared, he said others were curious, and one woman was even crying. While he encounters a lot of wildlife when he photographs them, a bear is not an animal he has ever encountered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very startled and my first reaction was to just get out of the way,\u201d Alolkoy said about his own reaction. \u201cWhen I felt like I was at a safe distance from it, I was more about curiosity than fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alolkoy recounted that the bear looked like it was looking for a way out of the store, running around the different aisles. However, he said it eventually found its way out and Fry\u2019s employees evacuated the store and the Oro Valley Police Department arrived at the grocery store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they\u2019re cornered, they\u2019re more dangerous and this seemed like that kind of situation so I was a little more cautious than I normally am,\u201d Alolkoy said.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s rained less this year, Arizona Game and Fish\u2019s public affairs community liaison Mark Frieberg said bears come closer to our neighborhoods when looking for \u201cbear necessities\u201d like food because there are less resources in the mountains. Uusally Frieberg said it doesn\u2019t happen often, but when it does he said it happens during the summer and has recently been happening more.<\/p>\n
Last Friday Olena Kotsur said she was barely able to stay calm when she saw a bear in this neighborhood about three miles away from the Fry\u2019s. She said she also saw it around six in the morning when she was going for a walk in the morning. While she normally sees wildlife like javelina, she said she had never seen a bear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was frozen. I was freaking out because you don\u2019t really expect to see a bear somewhere here,\u201d Kotsur said. \u201cWhen he saw me, he just stopped and he started staring at me. It was really scary moment.\u201d<\/p>\n