{"id":69075,"date":"2017-07-31T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bear-sightings-in-dolores-prompt-sheriff-patrols\/"},"modified":"2017-07-31T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T10:00:00","slug":"bear-sightings-in-dolores-prompt-sheriff-patrols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bear-sightings-in-dolores-prompt-sheriff-patrols\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear sightings in Dolores prompt sheriff patrols"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A black bear with a silver-colored back climbs the rocks above the Dolores River in January.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma County sheriff\u2019s deputies are on the alert for bears in downtown Dolores after residents reported seeing one two weeks in a row.<\/p>\n

Residents said they spotted a bear rummaging through dumpsters on Central Avenue early in the morning on July 19, and Sheriff Steve Nowlin reported scaring one away from the same area the night of July 25. The first night, the bear left a mess in its wake, knocking over about 20 trash bins and spilling trash into the road. Nowlin said the local black bears often go after trash in the town during the fall, just before their hibernation, but it\u2019s unusual to see them this active in the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you wonder if we\u2019re going to have an early winter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Joe Lewandowski, the Southwest public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said a late frost in June killed many of the acorns and berries that bears rely on for food. He also said an increase in the human population of some bear habitats could be partly to blame for the early sightings.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore people live here than in the past,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing more bears because there are more eyes out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Dolores bear sightings were at night, just before the town trash pickup on Wednesday morning. Nowlin said that when bears\u2019 natural food sources become scarce, they often go after dumpsters and bird feeders. He said Dolores residents can avoid visits from the animals by bringing feeders inside at night and waiting until morning to take out the trash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bears know that Dolores is a buffet,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no problem with bears outside of town. \u2026 We need to keep them wild and keep them out of town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewandowski also recommended residents wash their garbage cans when possible to get rid of any extra odor, and avoid keeping any food on porches or in cars.<\/p>\n

So far, the bears haven\u2019t been reported near people or pets, and Nowlin said he wants to keep it that way. He said he has started patrolling the town himself on Tuesday nights whenever there isn\u2019t a Dolores deputy on duty, in order to \u201chaze\u201d any bears he sees. \u201cHazing\u201d can take many forms, but on July 25, Nowlin was able to drive off the bear by shooting it with rubber bullets. He said the idea is to make it \u201cas uncomfortable as possible\u201d for the animals to seek out food within town limits.<\/p>\n

Several conflicts between bears and humans have been reported across Colorado this summer, including some in the Durango area, where four bears were either shot by homeowners or euthanized by Wildlife Services earlier in July. Nowlin said he wants to avoid incidents like that in Montezuma County. He plans to start a bear safety education campaign for county residents and visitors, in conjunction with CPW\u2019s \u201cBear Aware\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheriff warns residents to secure trash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1332,21,44,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-69075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bears","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69075","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=69075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69075"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=69075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}