Dear Action Line,
Bear with me on the overuse of the word “can.” What’s the deal with bear-proof trash cans? We cannot open ours without channel locks, and when opened we have to modify such can to continue to open/close it. Our neighbors’ cans open easily as we have had to sneak our garbage in theirs. Bears apparently can open them, as evidenced by trash in the alleys – do they know something we don’t? Does the city keep track of numbers of people who can’t open their cans but bears can? Is the city doing anything to maintain trash cans so that we can use them and bears can’t?
Sincerely, Bin Challenged by the Cans
Dear Bin Challenged by the Cans,
Ah, the ever-present challenge of keeping bears out of our trash cans. I heard of another Western locality struggling with this problem referring to not wanting their town to develop a “Durango problem,” so we are on another top 10 list, unfortunately in this case. The main thing to know is that if your can is difficult to open, or is broken so that it opens without operating the lever (or undoing the clips in the older style), you can call the city’s dispatch number at 375-5004 and it will get fixed or replaced, hopefully sooner than later. If you are in the county or have commercial hauling done at a business by a private company in town, give that company a call. The city told me that the garbage truck drivers will report malfunctioning cans when they notice them but that’s not often going to be apparent when they are getting dumped by the trucks. There was a young bear wandering around the grid last week getting into trash, so please don’t let bears get acclimated to your trash.
The state recently passed a law to increase fines for human food attractants including unsecured trash with fines up into the thousands, but at this point it’s unclear how that is going to be enforced, given that the city enforces its own ordinances and police, sheriff and Colorado Parks and Wildlife enforce state laws. I talked to Bryan Peterson at Bear Smart Durango, the Durango nonprofit that has been at the forefront of this issue for many years, who told me there will be a meeting next month with the various governmental agencies to get this figured out. He told me Bear Smart recently did a joint survey of a downtown residential area with the Durango High School Green Team, and of the 185 bear-resistant cans examined, 35 didn’t work, nearly 20%. So check your can, or have a handy friend check out your can, if you feel comfortable with that.
Question for Action Line:
A couple of weeks ago, I put out our hummingbird feeders as always. They were stored clean from last year, and we used the same prepared feeder mix (no color) we have always used in the past. We always have very robust activity around our feeders, but this year we haven’t seen even one hummingbird since putting out the feeders; we haven’t done anything different. Is something happening with these little critters’ migration this year?
Thanks, Bird Watcher
Dear Bird Watcher,
First I’ll just say please be careful with hummingbird feeders and the bears – as you know, the bears can climb fences and raised decks and if there’s a chance they could get hold of yours, don’t leave them out.
As for your question, I asked Ms. Action Line, who knows a bit about this, and she said that it depends on the species. The broad-tailed and black-chinned come in early April and can be active at feeders before more protein-laden insects are available, and then they seem to disappear for a while as they are busy mating and breeding. They should come back to feeders eventually, and then the rufous hummers come down from their breeding migration in Alaska (usually early July) and they are cranky, hungry and can be aggressive toward other hummingbirds.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. Today’s Fun Fact: There are more than 365 known species of hummingbirds worldwide, although only four species frequent our neck of the woods, the three mentioned above plus the calliope hummingbird, the smallest in the United States, which passes through in autumn on its way back to Mexico from its summer home in the Northwest states and British Columbia. It takes a different route in the spring, heading north along the West Coast. Unlike songbirds, they hum because they don’t know the words.
