Boulder Town Hall To Discuss Bear Management

BOULDER, CO — After many recent bear sightings and break-ins in Boulder, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials will host a town hall meeting to discuss what residents can do to protect bears and what CPW is currently doing to protect bears. The meeting will be held on Monday, Aug. 26 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Foothill Elementary, 1001 Hawthorn Ave.

“The goal of the meeting is to provide the community with a perspective of how we work to mitigate human-bear issues, what the community can do to help save our bears and answer questions the public has of the policies that we follow,” CPW Northeast Region Manager Mark Leslie said in a statement. “We all play a role in minimizing interactions with bears by establishing strong ‘Bear Aware’ habits that can help prevent conflicts. We look forward to an open discussion on this.”

Topics expected to be covered include:

• Bear biology and why there are bears in Boulder
• Overview of CPW’s policies on bears and why wildlife officers don't want bears in the city
• History of bears in Boulder
• Current and future efforts
• What residents can do to protect bears
• Open discussion, questions, one-on-one conversations

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CPW officers euthanized two bears over the past two weeks. One of the bears was found on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, and the other had a history of home break-ins west of Boulder, wildlife officials said.

“People need to be especially cautious with their garbage and food attractants,” Leslie said. “Giving bears easy access to food allows them to become comfortable in an area. If they find food they can become aggressive and will act to defend it. A bear protecting its food source can be very dangerous.”

Bears are now in a feeding frenzy known as hyperphagia, an instinctive metabolic response to the approaching change of seasons, wildlife officials said. Between now and about early November through mid-December, bears will search for food intensely before heading into their dens, scrounging for any available meals up to 20 hours a day.