Colorado Parks and Wildlife had a busy week.
Wildlife officials released two rehabilitated black bear yearlings west of Durango and a great horned owl near Wildcat Canyon on Wednesday.
The sibling bears mark the third and fourth CPW has released this year, a sharp departure from the agency’s annual average, after a year with minimal human-bear conflict.
CPW district wildlife manager Brandon Dye first picked up the two bears last summer as cubs after their mother was killed and they were orphaned.
“A lot of times, we get these bears and their mom was hit by a car,” said John Livingston, spokesman for CPW.
Dye transported the bears to CPW’s Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Del Norte where rehab center manager Michael Sirochman took care of the bears up until their release.
While in Del Norte, Sirochman raised the bears at a distance.
“The most important thing in caring for orphaned cubs is to keep their wild instincts alive and limit human interaction,” Livingston said.
The cubs were placed in an open enclosure where they could climb aspen trees and begin learning many of the life skills required to survive in the wild.
Sirochman focused on fattening up the bears while they were at the facility so they can survive hibernation. CPW aims for female cubs to weigh about 80 pounds and males around 90 pounds ahead of a winter release.
Wild bear cubs can head into winter weighing only 40 or 50 pounds, Livingston said.
“If they have good fat reserves, they can get a really good head start on learning how to survive out there,” he said.
Caretakers took caution to limit contact with the bears while feeding so they don’t associate humans with food and become dependent.
Entering winter, Sirochman tapered off their food to mimic the bears’ natural cycle and induce hibernation. The bears bedded down in an artificial den at the rehabilitation center and continued their hibernation through their relocation.
On Wednesday morning, Sirochman loaded up the artificial den and transported the two yearlings over Wolf Creek Pass to a team of wildlife managers from the Durango office who then took the bears to their denning site deep in the San Juan Mountains west of Durango.
CPW transported the bears back to their final destination on the back of a snowcat.
The location is one that CPW has used before – the cub burned by the 416 Fire was placed at the same site.
“We’ve had a lot of success with that site, where we don’t see these bears come back in either through hunter harvest or through roadkill, and we haven’t seen them come back into towns and become problem bears getting into trash,” Livingston said. “The spot has lots of really good forage available in the spring, and it’s just really good bear habitat.”
Once there, wildlife managers dug out a spot before laying down hay. The team unloaded the artificial den and then insulated the box with hay and snow.
The bears will naturally exit the den in spring, and CPW will go back and collect the artificial den.
“These two had really good fur on them and they’ve got everything they need to get through the winter,” Livingston said.
Throughout their ordeal, the two siblings were kept together, a procedure that CPW uses because it can increase the chances of a successful return.
“We definitely like to keep bears and bear cubs together especially when we release them back to the wild,” he said. “They tend to do a little bit better and have a better chance of survival when they’re paired up.”
Each yearling is outfitted with a GPS ear tag that a CPW researcher paid for to allow the agency to track the bears. The ear tags won’t share real-time data; rather, they will ping each bear’s location every few days, but they’re something CPW hasn’t done systematically for past bear cub releases.
“We’re excited to see where they go after they come out of hibernation,” Livingston said.
The ear tags will transmit until August or September, providing wildlife managers with critical information about its rehabilitated bear releases.
“It really helps from the research side and from the wildlife managers’ perspective seeing our success with putting these bears back out in specific areas,” he said.
The two black bears are the third and fourth bears released from CPW’s Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center this season, a positive development, Livingston said.
CPW ordinarily releases about a dozen cubs every year during the fall and winter.
The Southern Ute Wildlife Resource Management Division in partnership with CPW reintroduced two orphaned bear cubs in December in the HD Mountains.
“We had a really good bear year this year in terms of not having a lot of conflict and the forage was really good in the high country for a lot of the year, which was great,” Livingston said.
On Wednesday, CPW officials also released a great horned owl that was found along the side of the road west of Durango.
The bird was likely bumped by a car and was unable to fly, but suffered no injuries, Livingston said.
CPW took the owl to Durango Animal Hospital and then to the Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where it returned to flying within a week.
Sirochman performed a hunting test, in which live mice are released into what looks like the miniature version of a hockey rink, to ensure the raptor could survive in the wild.
The bird passed the tests and CPW district wildlife manager Stephanie Taylor released the owl near Wildcat Canyon.
“With those birds, we always try to make sure that we’re releasing them pretty close to where they were originally found,” Livingston said.
ahannon@durangoherald.com
