By admin 
It’s been a scary year with Colorado’s hunger-challenged black bears, and wildlife experts say it’s finally time for the calorie-monsters to head for about five months of bed.
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But some Halloween-flavored midnight snacks are keeping them up.
Decorative pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns left out on porches this time of year are encouraging Colorado bears to stay up and trick-or-treat for squash snacks instead of launching their winter hibernation.
“The seeds are really desirable for bears. They’re super-high in calorie count for them,” said John Livingston, southwest region spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. “They can get a good calorie bang for their buck out of those.”
When it can take 30 pounds of gambel oak acorns to give a bear three pounds of winter fat, selective foraging and gourd-gorging are a big part of late-season bear walks.
“We’re really trying to encourage our bears to find a den and call it a year right now,” Livingston said. “But as long as we keep putting out different food sources for them, it gives them incentive to stay awake and keep adding on fat reserves ahead of denning for the winter.”
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Livingston and other wildlife officials and officers have had a crushingly busy summer of ubiquitous ursines. Early season drought robbed bears of the easier berries and nuts they need to fatten up for winter. When the bears naturally headed downhill to scavenge calories from cabin pantries and city trash cans, they rumbled into a record number of human-bear contacts and conflicts.
Some humans were injured in the confrontations, and as a further blow to many Coloradans, nearly 300 bears had to be put down by late summer after attacking, or becoming too acclimatized to human food.
Livingston, in Durango, said outdoors enthusiasts there were starting to see bear activity finally slow down as hibernation neared. But now he sees videos and hears of nighttime porch visits to nosh on bountiful pumpkins.
And they might try to stick around to haunt the house.
“More of the bear conflicts we’re responding to now are bears that are looking to den underneath somebody’s house,” Livingston said. “A lot of our bears are getting nice and fat, and they’re starting to look for places where they could go to sleep. And the more we’re putting out some snacks for them, the more they may even look at our own houses as a good place to den.”
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Here’s some tips to keep your fright nights from arriving on all fours:
- Keep pumpkins off the porch. Display them inside the window, or if you must, put them out in the day and bring them inside at bedtime. This works with squirrels and raccoons as well.
- Take down bird feeders as well. To a bear, a nice full feeder is like a Tootsie Roll full of oil seeds.
- Don’t leave dog food dishes outside, and secure garage doors and windows if you’re keeping dog food there. No one needs trash pandas and oversized teddy bears clawing it out in the garage over a bag of kibble.