{"id":39363,"date":"2022-07-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/early-monsoon-helps-vegetation-ahead-of-foraging-season\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:49:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:49:37","slug":"early-monsoon-helps-vegetation-ahead-of-foraging-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/early-monsoon-helps-vegetation-ahead-of-foraging-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Early monsoon helps vegetation ahead of foraging season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Two
Two bear cubs play in a field near Mancos. Some people say encouraging bear hunts in the forest will do nothing to solve the problem of bears searching for food in towns.<\/span>Courtesy of Teri Goodall<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Wildlife experts are hopeful an early monsoon will help vegetation and natural food sources this summer in the high country, thereby reducing the chances of bears wandering into populated areas in search of food.<\/p>\n

Bear sightings so far this year have been on par with last year\u2019s numbers heading into foraging season.<\/p>\n

As of July 15, Bear Smart Durango reported 65 bear sightings in La Plata County. About 33% of those were reported by city residents, and about half could be traced back to human food attractants.<\/p>\n

By comparison, Bear Smart Durango tracked 58 bear sightings as of July 15, 2021.<\/p>\n

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has reported 86 sightings so far this year in the county compared with 82 sightings this time last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting typical reports that a bear got into beehives and stuff like that,\u201d said Bryan Peterson, executive director of Bear Smart Durango. \u201cI would say the majority of the reports from in town Durango are bears getting into trash cans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterson said the summer months can be tough for bears because they are between vegetation sources. Because berries and acorns do not start growing until late July and early August, that can lead to increased bear sightings during the early summer months.<\/p>\n

CPW spokesman John Livingston said the forecast is hopeful this year\u2019s foraging season will be plentiful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe monsoons in the last few weeks certainly help,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing any kind of massive die-off events where we\u2019re thinking everything dried up too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Livingston said bear conflicts have been down this summer, and the more recent bear activity is a result of drier conditions over the last two weeks. Recent incidents involved bears rummaging through trash because the acorns and berries have not fully come in yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut so far, we\u2019re still hopeful that we\u2019re still going to get good berries and acorns up in the high country in the next month or so,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a good sign that we have fruit on trees; not all that\u2019s ripened up yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

August through October are important feeding months for bears because they are preparing for hibernation. Livingston said during this time bears consume a lot of calories, and Durango could see increased bear sightings because the bruins are searching for food when the forage is not suitable.<\/p>\n

\"Bears
Bears are most likely to seek food in town when there is no food available in the forest. (Courtesy of Bear Smart)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Peterson said bear hibernation periods change as climate changes. If Durango continues to have warmer springs, it will shorten the bears\u2019 hibernation period.<\/p>\n

Livingston also said bear hibernation is dependent on the quality of snowpack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a good snowpack and you\u2019re getting spring snow, those bears are going to stay hibernating,\u201d Livingston said. \u201cBut if things are greening up sooner, and it\u2019s getting warmer, they\u2019ll come out of those dens a little bit earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPW biologist Brad Weinmeister said some areas of the county have been plagued by drier weather than others. That can make the upcoming foraging season harder to assess.<\/p>\n

The monsoon has provided enough moisture for bears to find food during their forage, but the question becomes how much?<\/p>\n

In June, much of northern La Plata County received 3 to 4 inches of precipitation, according to the National Weather Service\u2019s Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service.<\/p>\n

Weinmeister said bears tend to stay in the high country during a natural forage, and if northern La Plata County continues to receive moisture, there will be fewer sightings and incidents in town.<\/p>\n

The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service indicates much of northern La Plata County has received 0.1 to 0.5 inches of rain over the past week.<\/p>\n

Weinmeister doubts arid weather in the near future will have much impact on the berry and acorn forage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose plants are producing, and we always have dry spells this time of year, sometimes weeks at a time,\u201d he said. \u201cActually, with the moisture we got, we replenished that ground moisture quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weinmeister said root system depth and development are factors when discussing the impact of dry spells on food sources. If not enough water seeps into the ground, it could harm growth.<\/p>\n

CPW encourages residents to report bear sightings early and often.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can get a call about a bear early, before it starts becoming a habitual offender, we can go out to a person\u2019s property or neighborhood and give advice on how to remove some of those attractants,\u201d Livingston said.<\/p>\n

CPW tries to prevent incidents where it must trap bears and relocate them. Livingston said best practices are cleaning barbecue grills, keeping trash off the curb until morning and taking down hummingbird feeders.<\/p>\n

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

County bear sightings have been on pace with last year\u2019s numbers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39364,"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-39363","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\/39363","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=39363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84310,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39363\/revisions\/84310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39363"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}