Lack of wild food drives bears to urban areas in the valley at higher rates
Ray K. Erku/The Aspen Times
Three bears perched 30 feet above the Aspen Pedestrian Mall on Wednesday morning, their claws latched tightly to the upper limbs of a cottonwood tree.
The mother bear and two cubs joined a long list of bear sightings and reports this year as bears flocked to the city to find food. The city of Aspen recorded 126 bear-related trash intrusions since July — more than 2.5 times as many as the same period last year.
Lara Xaiz, Aspen Parks and Open Space Department wildlife coordinator, said the city works to educate and manage human to bear interactions, given the increased bear presence.
“We can’t go move the bears,” Xaiz said. “So we have to try and control the people.”
If bears are in a tree, she said it’s best to leave them alone, so they can relax enough to come down and wander to a park or forest. If people crowd the tree the bears may stay up in the limbs all day without food or water. In the fall, they need to consume 20,000 calories per day to prepare for hibernation, she said.
“They really need to be out there getting food, and if we are surrounding them and keeping them from moving around and foraging, then we’re affecting their ability to survive through the winter,” she said.
But on Wednesday, the bears stayed aloft for only three hours before wandering off toward Wagner Park. A large crowd never congregated under the tree.
Holly Taylor/Courtesy photo
“At least it was quiet in town, and there weren’t a lot of people,” Betsy Scheinkman Weil said, after watching the event from Aspen Sports, where she works as Sales Lead. “All of the people were being really considerate of what to do.”
Scheinkman Weil said in the past she had seen a tourist with a baby approach a bear to get a photo.
On Wednesday, though, Xaiz said she received a call about the bears and checked in on the site a few different times. She kept tabs from the entrance of the mall, occasionally asking onlookers to give the bears space.
“Anytime you’re affecting their behavior, even if it’s just that they’re turning to look at you, that’s changing their behavior,” she said. “And that’s too close.”
But regarding the bear incident, Ally Self, an employee near the sighting, said she was frustrated with the response time from the police.
“I was told that they were too busy and they would call back later,” Self said of her time on the phone with the police.
Xaiz said they recently streamlined the city’s response by creating a bear hotline to answer bear-related questions or concerns. The number for the hotline is 970-920-BEAR. Otherwise the police department, she said, will forward calls to the dispatch, and then to her at the parks department, which can take time.
Compared to years past, Roaring Fork Valley Bear Coalition Founder Daniela Kohl said she received three times as many calls relating to bear activity or bear management this year than she did last year.
Xaiz said the increased bear presence in the city occurred because of natural food shortage in the mountains. A late freeze in the spring and warm spell in early July destroyed much of the bears’ natural supply, she said.
Given the high bear population in the valley this year, she said it’s crucial to keep bears from habituating to human’s presence.
Holly Taylor/Courtesy photo
“The more comfortable they get with us, the more comfortable they get around our homes,” she said. “And once they start entering homes, then things don’t usually end well for the bear.”
A man shot and inadvertently killed a bear in Willits in September after it climbed through his yard, and blocked a street of his neighborhood.
To minimize risk to both bears and humans, the city and the coalition work to instruct the public to keep their food in bear-resistant cans, to lock doors, windows, and to try to scare bears away with horns if they are getting into trash.
Kohl said the coalition sells and provides electric bear mats, electric fences, and bear-resistant cans to valley residents.
“But, if a bear has a lot of time — if (it) has like, six, seven days and that can is outside — it doesn’t matter how bear resistant it is,” she said. “It will eventually bite (into) it and make a hole in it.”
Xaiz said it’s best to keep trash inside until shortly before the garbage truck comes to collect it.
But bears persist. While Aspen residents have done well managing their personal trash cans, she said dumpsters and recycling are still under siege.
Lara Xaiz/Aspen Parks and Open Space Department
“There was one morning, there were six dumpsters knocked over,” she said. “And then the metal bar (was) bent and broken off.”
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at [email protected].