{"id":16338,"date":"2025-09-30T01:03:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-killed-bear-in-dolores-fined-500-for-illegally-discharging-firearm\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:56:23","slug":"man-who-killed-bear-in-dolores-fined-500-for-illegally-discharging-firearm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-killed-bear-in-dolores-fined-500-for-illegally-discharging-firearm\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who killed bear in Dolores fined $500 for illegally discharging firearm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=e1629363-0c8f-58c5-9896-1b2fee502e74&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1134\" alt=\"A bear in a tree pants as the hot afternoon sun beats down on it on Aug. 13 as it looks for a little more shade in the backyard of a Durango home. Human-bear conflicts have increased this summer, in part because of environmental conditions and human actions. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A bear in a tree pants as the hot afternoon sun beats down on it on Aug. 13 as it looks for a little more shade in the backyard of a Durango home. Human-bear conflicts have increased this summer, in part because of environmental conditions and human actions. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>A 37-year-old man who killed a bear in mid-August pleaded guilty in Dolores Municipal Court on Friday, Sept. 26, to illegally discharging a firearm within town limits and accepted a plea deal related to failing to secure trash in a bear-resistant container.<\/p>\n<p>Juan Jimenez De La Cruz pleaded guilty to both charges and paid a $499 fine, according to records from Dolores Municipal Court.<\/p>\n<p>The failure to secure trash in a bear-resistant container was a reduced charge from a previous violation. De La Cruz had originally been charged with violating a hunting prohibition. The trash violation carried a $499 fine, which was suspended on the condition that De La Cruz not violate any other town ordinances for the next 12 months, according to court records.<\/p>\n<p>De La Cruz could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin described the bear killing during a Town of Dolores Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 8.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI tell you, this year has probably been the busiest year ever in my past 11 years here with bears,\u201d Nowlin said.<\/p>\n<p>Nowlin attributed the uptick in bear activity to a regional drought, along with wildfire activity in the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust in the month of August, six violations in a week for unlatched trash containers that these bears get into.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since then, compliance with the code has improved, Nowlin said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the 18th of August, there was a serious incident that took place up on Merritt Way where a firearm was discharged within the town limits.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nowlin said that discharging a firearm within town limits violated the Dolores code, while the killing constituted illegal hunting. The illegal hunting charge, however, was amended to a failure to secure trash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illegal hunting charge amended to violation for failing to latch bear-resistant trash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16338","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=16338"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20145,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16338\/revisions\/20145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16338"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}