{"id":53277,"date":"2020-06-17T14:14:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T20:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bear-injured-in-east-canyon-fire-is-rescued\/"},"modified":"2020-06-17T20:14:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T20:14:05","slug":"bear-injured-in-east-canyon-fire-is-rescued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bear-injured-in-east-canyon-fire-is-rescued\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear injured in East Canyon Fire is rescued"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The prognosis for a bear burned in the East Canyon Fire looks promising, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In 2018, the agency saved a bear burned in the 416 Fire north of Durango.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A young bear burned in the East Canyon Fire was rescued by wildlife officials Tuesday after its paws were severely injured in the blaze west of Durango.<\/p>\n

Matt Thorpe, wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said the department received a call from fire personnel around 5 p.m. Tuesday that an injured bear was walking around the perimeter of the fire.<\/p>\n

CPW crews mobilized, grabbing a tranquilizer gun and traps and headed to the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had crossed Cherry Creek Road and was hanging out by a pond and an aquatic area,\u201d Thorpe said. \u201cAnd then disappeared down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wildlife officers searched for the bear around the pond and located it. The bear was shot with a tranquilizer and was out about five minutes later, Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

Upon examination, the bear was determined to be male, less than 50 pounds and about a year old.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, it looked like it had some severe burns on its feet,\u201d Thorpe said. \u201cIt was clearly worth taking it to our rehab facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A young bear burned in the East Canyon Fire was rescued Tuesday.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A bear was found with severe burns on its paws from the East Canyon Fire on Tuesday. The bear will be treated and hopefully released in winter.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The bear was taken to the Frisco Creek Rehabilitation Facility in Del Norte where it was determined the injury must have happened in the previous day or two because there were no signs of infection.<\/p>\n

Thorpe said the bear was already walking Wednesday, albeit in pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re cautiously optimistic, but we think we\u2019ll be able to treat it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If it is possible to save the bear, it will be treated and kept at the center. Depending on how quickly it recovers, the bear could be released this fall or, in a more serious case, the bear will be allowed to enter hibernation and placed into a human-made den in the winter so it can awake in the wild during spring.<\/p>\n

Thorpe said the situation was very similar to that in 2018 during the 416 Fire when a cub was rescued after suffering injuries from the fire<\/a> north of Durango.<\/p>\n

That bear was released in winter 2019 after being successfully treated. Thorpe said there haven\u2019t been any sightings of the 416 Fire bear, which was tagged, nor any reports that it was harvested by a hunter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had no contact with it,\u201d Thorpe said. \u201cWe\u2019re taking that as a positive sign that it\u2019s out in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Wildlife
Wildlife officials were able to track and tranquilize a bear injured in a East Canyon Fire west of Durango. The bear will be sent to a rehab facility.<\/span>Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wildlife officials say young bear had severe burns on its paws<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1332,28,29,84,603],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bears","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-wildfire","tag-wildlife"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53277","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=53277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53277"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}