{"id":117078,"date":"2014-10-20T23:14:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T05:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fewer-bears-wandering-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2014-10-20T23:14:01","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T05:14:01","slug":"fewer-bears-wandering-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fewer-bears-wandering-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Fewer bears wandering in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heather
Heather Johnson, Colorado Parks and Wildlife project lead for a multiyear bear research project around Durango, tags a cub of a collared female bear at her den.<\/span>Courtesy of Heather Johnson\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This summer, researchers captured 106 bears within six miles of downtown Durango. Of these bears, 26 of them had never been captured before.<\/p>\n

It was a relatively slow season for bear captures because food was widely available in the wild, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t that motivated to come into our traps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

By comparison, during 2012, which was peak season, researchers captured 180 bears, and 86 had never been trapped before according to CPW data.<\/p>\n

Bear Smart, an educational nonprofit, reported an average year for bear sightings and incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cBears were still causing trouble,\u201d said Executive Director Bryan Peterson.<\/p>\n

As compared with previous months, bear reports have picked up in October, he said.<\/p>\n

This year, Bear Smart partnered with CPW to distribute 20 bear-proof garbage cans in Durango West I.<\/p>\n

It was difficult to gauge the success of the program this year because overall bear-human incidents are down in that neighborhood, Peterson said.<\/p>\n

As a part of CPW research, Johnson is evaluating the effectiveness of bear-proof garbage cans over time to see how much they help minimize bear-human incidents.<\/p>\n

In 2013, the agency distributed 1,100 cans across two neighborhoods with the help of the city, and so far, the general response from residents has been positive, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

To evaluate population trends, the researchers have also fitted female bears with GPS collars and will visit their dens each winter.<\/p>\n

Over the summer, the researchers fitted nine new female bears with GPS collars, for a total of 40 collared bears. Johnson and her team visit dens to monitor cub survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect the bears will be in really good shape,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heather Johnson, Colorado Parks and Wildlife project lead for a multiyear bear research project around Durango, tags a cub of a collared female bear at her den.Courtesy of Heather Johnson\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife This summer, researchers captured 106 bears within six miles of downtown Durango. Of these bears, 26 of them had never been captured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2395,1332,13,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-117078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-animal-science","tag-bears","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117078"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=117078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}