{"id":37876,"date":"2022-10-13T23:01:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T05:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wildlife-officials-remove-400-pound-black-bear-napping-under-a-deck-in-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:40:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:40:52","slug":"wildlife-officials-remove-400-pound-black-bear-napping-under-a-deck-in-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wildlife-officials-remove-400-pound-black-bear-napping-under-a-deck-in-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife officials remove 400-pound black bear napping under a deck in Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0b25d025-5997-5784-be29-4fff0c71f6ea&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" alt=\"Colorado Parks and Wildlife captured and relocated a 400-pound black bear that was napping under a deck Wednesday at a house on Hermosa Avenue in Durango. A CPW spokesman said the bear\u2019s size is \u201cpretty unique\u201d for one found inside Durango city limits. (Courtesy of John Livingston\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Colorado Parks and Wildlife captured and relocated a 400-pound black bear that was napping under a deck Wednesday at a house on Hermosa Avenue in Durango. A CPW spokesman said the bear\u2019s size is \u201cpretty unique\u201d for one found inside Durango city limits. (Courtesy of John Livingston\/Colorado Parks and Wildlife)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A 400-pound black bear that stopped for a nap under a resident\u2019s deck Wednesday in west Durango was tranquilized and relocated by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.<\/p>\n<p>The unwelcome guest was reported by a resident who lives on Hermosa Avenue near Needham Elementary School. The sighting of the king-size bruin happened to coincide with Fat Bear Week, an online photo contest in which voters pick their favorite fat bear from a dozen competitors in Katmai National Park &amp; Preserve in Alaska. This year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/katm\/learn\/fat-bear-week-2022.htm\" id=\"link-c2c10c5bd677392a89f18879cb83c8da\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">champion was bear 747<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"naviga-map\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?q=37.2896622%2C-107.8829816&amp;z=15&amp;output=embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Map\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p>CPW District Wildlife Officer Luke Clancy responded to the call to find the black bear still under the deck. Clancy called for backup and he and another CPW wildlife manager tranquilized the bear using a dart gun. But they quickly realized they would need more help to move the beast.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of three more CPW officials, officers were able to pull the sedated bear out from under the deck and carry it to a waiting trailer. CPW spokesman John Livingston said the consensus was that the adult male bear weighed about 400 pounds and was about 10 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Before reversing the effects of the sedative, CPW officials performed a health evaluation of the bear, inserted a microchip (similar to the one pet owners put in their pets) and attached ear tags. The tags and chip contain the date the bear received a dose of tranquilizer as well as the date that it would be safe to consume the meat if the animal were to be hunted or otherwise killed.<\/p>\n<p><!-- gallery:498aa980-d6f3-4677-9b12-27828c08e5d0 --><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bear was obviously in pretty good health condition and was obviously in good body condition going into winter denning,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as the tagging and health evaluation were completed, CPW officers administered a drug to reverse the sedative, which quickly woke the animal back up. CPW drove the bear more than 60 miles from the location of capture to release it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best thing is when we have a rehabbed bear or a bear that we relocate, you\u2019re just hopeful that they don\u2019t get themselves in trouble in a residential area again or that we can do a good job of keeping them away from the dangers that human\u2019s present \u2013 highways and stuff of that nature,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n<p>Black bears bulk up on food as the hibernation season approaches, and while this animal was no record-breaker (black bears can grow up to 600 pounds), it was among the largest seen within city limits.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QYgGIl0IpLU\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Livingston said residents should continue to take the standard precautions by ensuring they pick up fallen fruit, remove bird feeders, secure trash bins and clean barbecue grills. He also noted that pet owners who have dog food delivered to their doorstep should make sure it does not sit outside for long, as bears will smell it through the packaging.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBears are going to start looking for a good place to den during the winter,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a spot that was a nice cool location out of the sun during the heat of the day, there were apple trees nearby and that bear might\u2019ve been thinking, \u2018Hey, this might be a great spot for me to hang out all winter.\u2019 Obliviously we can\u2019t have a bear in town, in someone\u2019s backyard, denning for winter, and that\u2019s why it was so important to relocate this bear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-fd3ee9aaa94c2dd114aadc5607c660ff\"><a href=\"mailto:rschafir@durangoherald.com\">rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Incident coincides with Alaskan national park\u2019s \u2018Fat Bear Week\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1478,1332,1031,28,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bear-smart","tag-bears","tag-colorado-parks-and-wildlife","tag-headlines","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37876","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=37876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83815,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37876\/revisions\/83815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37876"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}