Kristi Hart’s housemates happened to be looking out the window of their home Tuesday afternoon when they spotted a bear walking through their property.

Hart and four others live in southeast Salem, near Kuebler Boulevard and Interstate 5. It’s the same area another person on the social media website Nextdoor reported a bear wandering the parking lot of a nearby business.

Hart said Thursday she checked security footage later in the day that captured the bear walking near the driveway.

Her housemates reported the sighting to Oregon’s Department of Fish & Wildlife, which told them to secure their garbage, she said.

While she believes the bear has moved on, the residents are using caution when taking out their two dogs and also checked on their outdoor cat, Hart said.

A spokesperson for ODFW confirmed it had received a report of a bear sighting in the area. Without reports of damage, nuisance or public safety issues, ODFW said it would continue to monitor the situation. Although the sighting is near Oregon State Police headquarters, the agency said it had not responded to any sightings in the area.

“We only got one report and it wasn’t that there was anything like it getting into garbage cans or causing a public safety concern, so at this point we’re just keeping an eye on the situation,” ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said.

According to ODFW, an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 black bears are in Oregon, mostly in the Cascade Range and Blue and Wallowa Mountains in northeast Oregon.

Early summer is a common time of the season for bears to wander into populated areas seeking food, officials said.

On Wednesday, a black bear was spotted and climbed a tree in Madras. The bear was tranquilized and returned to the national forest.

“Early summer usually brings a bumper crop of news stories about bears appearing in places they’re not typically seen, from backyards and suburban streets to residential communities,” said the website BearWise, a group that ODFW partners with. The reasons range from juvenile bears getting booted out of the den, to adult bears seeking a mate, to just more people with cell phones living in bear country, the website said.

The department asked those in the area to secure trash cans, bring in bird feeders, pick up fruit under trees and not provide food as the bear was likely to move on.

Other basics listed by the department include:

• Never feed or approach bears

• Never leave pet food outdoors

• Clean and store grills

• Alert your neighbors to bear activity

Dianne Lugo covers the Oregon Legislature and equity issues. Reach her at dlugo@statesmanjournal.com or on X @DianneLugo

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Bear spotted in Salem, another bear removed from Madras