The bear necessities

Ginny Hutchison is passionate about being “bear aware.” Sometimes referred to as the Estes Park bear lady, Hutchison takes her role of warning people about bear safety very seriously—or maybe we should say beary seriously. 

When she lived near downtown, Hutchison saw bears frequently out for dinner as they rummaged from restaurant dumpster to restaurant dumpster. 

For years, Hutchison and Tim Nicholson have worked hard to heighten awareness about the need to secure dumpsters so bears would not be treated to a complimentary, nightly smorgasbord. 

After Nicholson moved to Estes in the 1980s, he made it his mission to keep a two-block area in downtown Estes Park safe from bears. Actually, it is more accurate to say that Nicholson wanted to keep the bears safe from humans.

When a bear becomes a nuisance, Colorado Parks and Wildlife typically lure a bear into a trap by using highly fragrant foods, such as donuts and bacon, said Nicholson.

After the bear enters the trap, a pressure-sensitive floor strip activates a mechanism that slams the door shut. Wild with fear, the bear may struggle for hours until exhausted in a futile effort to get free before being euthanized.

Nicholson, who works as a maintenance tech for the Estes Park Housing Authority, says it is a horrible way to treat an animal that was unfortunate enough to have a close encounter with humans.

Black bears have a tremendous sense of smell, more than 2,000 times better than a human’s sense of smell, said Hutchison. They can sniff food from as far away as five miles, which is why leaving garbage accessible in unsecured trash cans and dumpsters or in cars is such a serious problem. 

To make her point, Hutchison said a bear can not only smell the remnants of a can of beans, but they can smell the perfume of the person who opened the can. 

This time of year, as bears prepare to hibernate from November until mid-March, they can consume as many as 20,000 calories a day. This is called hyperphagia and the goal is to pack on fat for the long winter months ahead. Bears will go to great lengths to find those calories, one way or the other.

“They will forage in garbage cans, turn over heavy dumpsters, and even break into cars and cabins in search of food,” said Hutchison. 

“A door will not stop them, they will go through a wall if they want in,” said Nicholson. “I have seen a bear take out a wall, and then they will go through cupboards and open a refrigerator.” 

Bears have become habituated to being around people and they are smart, like apes, Nicholson said. “They are aware of what a cooler looks like. If they see one in a car, they will try to get in to get it,” he said. 

While black bears are wild, they are generally not aggressive, said Nicholson who describes them as afraid of people. You are more likely to have what he calls an “encounter” with a bear than to be attacked, though it does happen. A black bear was euthanized in Steamboat Springs last May after it attacked someone out on a walk and a year ago a bear attacked an employee in the kitchen of the St. Regis Aspen Resort. A mother bear with two cubs charged at two boys in a heavily wooded area in Colorado Springs last October. The bear was euthanized and the cubs were tranquilized in order to be transferred and released, but one died from the drug.

Despite what may seem like an increase in local bear sightings, Hutchison does not think there are more bears in Estes, but because of trail cameras she says we are seeing more postings of bear photos on social media. 

Nicholson thinks there may actually be fewer bears than there were 10 years ago because of increased incidences of wildlife-human interface and CPW’s removal policy. And when it comes to seeing a bear, Nicholson said he has seen more bears in trees than on the ground.

It is estimated that there are fewer than 30 black bears living within Rocky Mountain National Park, an area of 415 square miles, and less than two dozen black bears in the Estes Valley, an area of about 320 square miles. 

The habitat at this elevation does not produce enough wild berries and other foods bears forage for. About 90 percent of a bear’s diet is plant based, including grasses and roots, as omnivores, they will also eat insects, fish, and meats from the carcasses of birds and other animals in an effort to get enough calories.

And they eat garbage, a far too easy source of food when they live close to a town. “They are eating machines,” said Hutchison. “All they do is eat.”

There has been some talk about planting chokeberries around the outskirts of town as a way to draw the bear further out for food, but Nicholson does not think that is the right thing to do. Instead, he wants people to make it hard for bears to access residential and commercial refuse.

Nicholson lobbied for several years to have the town adopt the Wildlife Protection Ordinance, Chapter 7.20 of the municipal code. The ordinance mandates that refuse (kitchen organic waste, food, food packaging, toothpaste, deodorant, cosmetics, spices, seasonings, oil and grease) must be put in a wildlife-resistant or hard-sided container that is fully enclosed, made of pliable materials, reinforced, and impervious to wildlife gaining access to the interior of the container. 

According to the Town code, which went into effect on April 1, 2016, wildlife resistant containers must meet standards set by the Living with Wildlife Foundation and pass a rating by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee as being “bear resistant” for 60 minutes.

Additionally, the ordinance specifies that an enclosed structure for storing refuse means a “residential building, commercial building, accessory dwelling unit, garage or shed,” and not “a patio, deck, driveway, or other area located outside of the walls of a residential building, commercial building, shed, garage or accessory dwelling unit.” 

The ordinance even includes rules for hummingbird feeders, which Hutchison is adamantly against and calls “humming-bear feeders.” 

“They are a mess. The wind blows and the liquid gets all over everything anyway, and the bears can smell it,” said Hutchison, who advocates that people replacing their hummingbird feeders with flowers to naturally attract the birds. She is also not keen on bird feeders that hold seeds because they too attract bears.

Over the years, Nicholson and Hutchison have fought hard to educate business owners and residents about the importance of making it hard for bears to access refuse, food packaging, and restaurant grease.

Due to his advocacy work, Nicholson says he is not welcome in some restaurants in Estes Park, but he says his vigilance is worth it. 

A year ago, CPW in Telluride had to euthanize a bear that had a belly full of plastic and other non-digestible food packaging which caused a blockage in its intestine that led to an infection.

Whether being lured into a trap and then being euthanized, or whether its eating human refuse that makes them sick, bears often are losers in their interactions with humans, said Nicholson, who is an admin along with Hutchison of the Facebook page Estes Park Wildlife Protection. 

Nicholson credits social media with helping to bring attention to the issues and to amplify public concern when someone is violating the town’s Wildlife Protection Ordinance.

Bears in Colorado

Colorado Parks and Wildlife estimates there are between 17,000 and 20,000 black bears in the state. There are no known brown bears in Colorado, although the fur of a black bear can look brown, honey, or rusty red. 

Grizzly bears have not been seen in Colorado for more than 45 years, when a man was attacked by a 400-pound grizzly in southwest Colorado near the headwaters of the Navajo River. In September 1979, Ed Wiseman, an outfitter who led people on hunting expeditions, survived to tell the tale. The attack was surprising to Wiseman and to authorities because there had been no reports of grizzlies in the state since the early 1950s. 

Depending on gender and the availability of food, an adult black bear in Colorado can range from about 125 to more than 400 pounds.