DENVER (KDVR) — After a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer found a bear wedged underneath a Colorado Springs porch, it scared it off to avoid a “strike” under CPW’s policy.
The agency is no stranger to relocating bears across the Front Range and in the mountains when they get a little too comfortable near human habitats. CPW calls those “nuisance bears.”
“We have a very thorough tracking and reporting system for bear incidents in Colorado,” CPW spokesperson Joey Livingston said. “For nuisance bears that are hanging around urban areas or around homes or showing a lack of fear of people, we relocate them. When we do that relocation they receive a strike.”
Livingston said if a bear is a repeat offender, already having one strike, then the agency’s policy is to euthanize the bear.
“Dangerous bears, that’s a different category,” Livingston said. “That’s a bear that’s broken into a home and learned to get a high-calories food reward. Those bears are unfortunately euthanized right away.”
Livingston said the agency tries as much as possible to avoid giving a bear a strike, to prevent euthanization. Livingston said the incident Sunday in Colorado Springs was a prime example.
So far this year, CPW has euthanized 78 bears, which is already higher than the 2021 total of 66. CPW had relocated 45 bears so far in 2022, after relocating 51 all of last year.