A woman captured the moment a bear crawled out of a dumpster and was followed by another, then another, and another. She said it was like watching a 'clown car.'

• Video taken in Connecticut showed a group of black bears crawling out of a dumpster one by one.
• The woman who took the video told local outlet WTNH, "It was just like one of those clown cars."

A woman in Connecticut pulled out her phone to capture the moment a black bear was crawling out of a dumpster — and then came a second bear, and a third, and a fourth.

"It was just like one of those clown cars," Emily Maurer told local outlet WTNH. Maurer said she was leaving work in the town of Avon on April 11 when she saw the bear, got in her car, and started filming.

Maurer sounds excited in the video at the sight of the first bear, exclaiming, "Oh my goodness! Look at this!" Then the second bear poked its head out, looking straight in her direction, followed by the remaining two.

"Oh my goodness there's four bears inside! Are you kidding me?" Maurer says.

—WTNH News 8 (@WTNH) April 18, 2023

Although the group of bears piling out of the dumpster made for a cute sight, bears accessing human food can lead to an increase in bear-human conflicts.

Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said that as bear sightings become more common in the state, it's increasingly important for homes and businesses to secure garbage in a way that bears cannot access it, explaining that the more bears consume human food, the more likely they are to actively seek it out.

"As the bear population continues to grow and expand its range in Connecticut, and bears become increasingly food conditioned, conflicts with humans will continue to increase," the agency says. "Food-conditioned bears pose a greater risk to public safety and often cause more property damage to houses, cars, pets, and livestock."

Bear activity across the country has also been increasing over the past month as bears come out of hibernation. A man lounging in his backyard in North Carolina last week was startled when a black bear came wandering onto his property. Video showed the man and the bear jumping when they noticed each other, with the bear staring him down for a beat before running off.