2009 CDOW hair snag study

The preliminary report for the ongoing Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) hair snag study entitled, "Non-Invasive DNA-Based Black Bear Density Estimates in Colorado - 2009," may be found on google docs, here.

Survey sites for the study were located near Tinidad and Glenwood Springs. The photo below, from the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project, is representational of a hair snag survey location, only.

Bear Film at The Back Space Theatre

The Back Space Theatre in partnership with Bear Smart Durango presents a showing of the film, “In The Company of Bears” as part of their post tour of films from the International Wildlife Film Festival, Thursday, March 31 at 6 p.m.

This film examines the relationship between people and bears, told through the eyes and experiences of Canadian black bear researcher, Michael Allen. It takes place in Whistler, British Columbia, where for the past 30 years bears and people have been living in great numbers. Michael's experiences and insight gives us hope that we may come to better understand bears, and make room for them in our world. Running time: 49 minutes.

A second film, “A Woman Among Wolves” follows after a brief intermission. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for children and free for Bear Smart Durango members. Memberships will be available at the door the night of the event. For more information, email bp@frontier.net or call (970) 749-4262.

Seating is limited. The film will also be shown Sunday, April 3 at 11 a.m.

The Back Space Theatre

1120 Main Ave. Suite 2

Phone: (970) 259-7940

2010 Bear Summary Report

Bear Smart Durango compiled a summary of the 2010 Bear Incident & Sighting data in a printed report that was presented to city and county policy makers last month. This report was made possible only with considerable help from the following: Colorado Division of Wildlife, The Durango Herald, Ecosphere Environmental Services, Heather Johnson/CDOW Mammal Research, Living with Wildlife Advisory Board of La Plata County, City of Durango and La Plata County Government. Special thanks to: Town of Mancos, Town of Telluride, Town of Vail, City of Aspen, City of Ouray and Town of Snowmass Village.

In addition, in 2010, in our area (Area 15):

• 18 bears were killed as nuisances or shot by landowner

• 10 bears were killed by vehicles, or other

• 20 bears were relocated

You can view a pdf of this Summary Report.

fun fact for the day

The Durango area had more reports of bears getting into trash in one day in July 2010 than the Ohio Division of Wildlife received for the entire year.

You can read about an increase in black bear reports in Ohio here.

Below is a chart produced by the IBA's Bear Specialist Group on approaches to dealing with human-bear conflict. 1) Educating the public provides a base (but has its limitations and is in general, ineffective). 2) You can educate bears by teaching them acceptable behavior, hazing (short term), aversive conditioning (long-term). 3) You can manage bears (trapping and relocating, or killing, either as nuisances or by increased hunting). 4) By far the largest chunk in approaches is being pro-active by preventing problems (removing human-provided foods, i.e. trash, bird feeders, fruit).

One major roadblock we have in our approach locally is that in the time we're taking to reduce attractants, i.e. trash, bird feeders, etc. we are continuously training new bears, including young bears, on how to utilize human-provided foods - ensuring that problems will be ongoing.

An example: The very next morning after a bear was destroyed in town for biting a resident in July, a new bear was at the same location getting into trash.

nuisance bears despite great natural foods

Knoxville News Sentinel, Nov. 27, 2010

Black bear nuisance behavior in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park got off to an early start this spring and has lasted longer than usual, biologists say.

Nine backcountry campsites in the park currently are closed because of bears aggressively searching for food, and in some cases, even tearing into tents.

Kim Delozier, chief wildlife biologist for the Smokies, said the late-season spate of nuisance bear behavior in the backcountry is especially surprising in light of the abundant natural food available to the bears from this fall's acorn crop.

"You'd think with plenty of food available, nuisance behavior wouldn't be a problem, but that's not been the case this fall," he said.

Article here.

2010 Bear Sightings & Incidents

Although the bear season isn't officially over, here are some preliminary results of the 2010 Bear Sighting & Incident data. For a more detailed recap of the 2010 bear season, go here.

BY THE NUMBERS: There have been 1,104 reports of bear sightings and incidents in 2010.The highest months for reports were June: 145, July: 401, August: 308 and September: 109. (see graph below).

• There were 38 reports of bears in homes or attempting to get into homes, 67 reports of bears in garages, on decks or in yards and 10 reports of bears breaking into vehicles.

• 883 of the reports involved human foods. 846 of those were bears getting into trash and 768 of the 846 were bears getting into trash in the city.

MAPS: A quick preliminary plot of sightings and incidents in 2010. The maps are a good representation of where sightings and incidents occurred, but not representational of the level, or severity, of sightings and incidents. (click photos for a larger view).