The first day of spring, in most places, brings flowers, chirping birds and mating bees. But here in the mountains, where the snow is still deep and the temperature still hanging mostly below freezing, ringing in the new season yesterday brought one of the first reported black bear sightings of the year and another mountain lion sighting.
A woman on Pyramid Road called the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office Thursday morning, saying a small bear had been visiting her porch over the last few days, and was peeking in her window.
Pitkin County Animal Safety Officer Re Re Baker advised her to spray it with a hose, “to make the porch an uncomfortable place to be.”
“It’s the first bear call I’ve gotten,” Baker said. “Hopefully we won’t get another for awhile.”
Bears hibernating locally don’t normally start coming out in substantial numbers until later in the spring. But Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) spokesman Randy Hampton said this time of the year it’s not unusual for some bears to wake up. “It’s a bit early,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean individual bears aren’t coming out here and there. We expect more and more to come out over the next month.”
A sow and three yearlings, he said, awoke recently in the Castle Creek area and have been seen making their rounds in the neighborhood and around Aspen Highlands mountain. At least one of the bears was spotted by more than one person the first week of March in that area.
But don’t expect the awakening bears to start rifling through trash cans and dumpsters just yet. After sleeping for several months, black bears typically spend two weeks drinking water and warming up their bodies before they start eating normal amounts of food.
“We’ve got our fingers crossed; we don’t want to have a year like last year,” Hampton said, referring to the 2007 summer and fall — a record year for bear/human conflict in the Roaring Fork Valley. A June frost, followed by a hot and dry early summer, killed off the bears’ natural food supply, leading them to raid residential trash cans and refrigerators, and fruit trees in downtown Aspen.
The city of Aspen and Pitkin County reformed trash laws in response, and DOW launched a public information campaign on how to co-exist with the bears. But 14 black bears in the county were put to death for aggressive behavior or repeatedly breaking into homes, while 25 were tranquilized and relocated.
But Hampton said there is some hope for this year.
“We’ve been in a cycle for seven years where we didn’t have enough moisture to adequately feed the spring growth,” he said, adding that this winter’s record snowfall has taken care of the moisture problem. “Now we need to get through the spring without a killing frost. If Mother Nature can warm things up slowly and consistently, that would be optimal.”
Mountain lion on Rio Grande Trail
Also yesterday, a mountain lion was sighted crossing the Rio Grande Trail near Stein Park. Local mountain lion sightings were also confirmed earlier this month, and wildlife officials say they’re not surprised the cats are making their way closer to residential areas than usual.
“The heavy, heavy snow this winter has concentrated the deer and elk from all over our valley,” said Hampton of the DOW.
Normally inhabitable places in the mountains have been rendered unlivable by the season’s snow, and have brought more animals — prey to the lions — into the valley.
“It’s not at all unusual for mountain lions to be around. Where the deer and elk go, they follow,” Hampton said.
But wildlife officials urge people to keep their pets leashed when on trails and in the woods, because lions will eat them, given the chance.
Saving baby bighorns
Meanwhile, county wildlife officials are working to reverse the rapid decline of bighorn sheep in the Crystal River Valley near Redstone. For the last four years, the mortality rate of newborn bighorn sheep has skyrocketed, to the point where 85 to 95 percent of lambs are expected to die within a few weeks of their birth this spring.
Oddly, grown sheep in the herd of roughly 25 remain vital.
“The sheep are reproducing but the lambs are not surviving,” said Pitkin County Open Space and Trails Ranger John Armstrong in a press release.
Last weekend, the DOW partnered with biologists, county open space officials and local volunteers to trap some sheep temporarily for testing. They believe the herd has been infected with pasturella, micoplasm or longworm — all communicable diseases spread through sheep saliva or by rubbing noses.
The team dropped an 80-by-80-foot net on the herd in a juniper and oak glade, catching 13 ewes and sheep. They bound the animals’ legs, blindfolded them and then drew samples of their blood, saliva and feces before attaching radio tracking collars on them. The animals were then sent back into the wild. Armstrong’s release said the “animals leapt up from their captors like a rocket.”
Officials hope to solve the mystery of the rampant newborn lamb deaths by studying the animals’ habits and testing them for infections and disease.
andrew@aspendailynews.com
