Bears are following their noses (and using their memories) and dining in Durango seemingly like never before. They have entered a couple of automobiles and done a lot of damage looking for their way out.
They have been in and out of dumpsters with cubs waiting expectantly alongside on their haunches for the results. Their favorite is the city’s plastic residential trash container, placed out the night before, at the curb. By the debris around many an upended container, what occurred is clear.
According to the city’s enforcement officer, more than 200 warnings or fines have been issued to trash container owners so far in 2017. Bears have been active: the incidents began in February.
It is time for humans, who know better, to handle their trash with more care.
Next week, the city council will consider a get-tough emergency ordinance which will eliminate the warning which is now issued to first time offenders with unsecured containers and instead begin the fines on their owners immediately.
Today, the first offense is $50 and subsequent offenses are $100.
Put your trash out before 6 a.m. and if it is seen strewn along the street later that morning, the fine will very likely occur. Trash pick-up drivers, and a roving code enforcement officer, will make note of your address.
The hope is that the elimination of the warning phase will focus homeowners’ attention – fully and immediately – on the need to mind their trash and the bears will move on to other sources of food, and back into the hills.
The council’s emergency action has a limit of 60 days, or so.
If the immediate fine does not work to encourage humans to properly tend to their garbage and discourage bears, the city may require that everyone obtain and use a bear proof container. That is a $200 expense (currently available to be paid over four years for $4 per month).
Let’s get tougher with fines first, see if the public and bears respond, and the expense of a less accessible container for bears can be avoided.
