A new grant program from Colorado Parks and Wildlife will help communities in Southwest Colorado and across the state mitigate conflict between humans and bears.

CPW announced its Human-Bear Conflict Reduction Community Grant Program on March 10 in an effort to pay for innovative community projects that can make an immediate impact and serve as a model for the rest of the state. Eligibility criteria for the grants are broad as CPW tries to unearth creative and potentially lasting solutions to human-bear conflict. A transfer of funds to natural resources programs by the Colorado Legislature last year paved the way for the one-time grants.

The program follows a downturn in human-bear conflict in Southwest Colorado last year, but amid continued concerns about the threats bears face from garbage and other attractants.

“This is a unique funding opportunity we are providing to help communities reduce human-bear conflicts,” said Kristin Cannon, deputy regional manager for CPW’s Northeast Region, in a news release. “High priority projects will model solutions to conflict, be innovative, are replicable by other communities, involve multiple partners and fill a need in an area with high conflict.”

CPW’s Human-Bear Conflict Reduction Community Grant Program is offering $1 million in grants with $50,000 to $500,000 in funding for individual projects that reduce conflicts. Projects should be concrete with tangible outcomes, clear breakdowns of costs and local support, Cannon said.

Recipients of the grant will have one year to implement their projects with the option to extend funding through June 2024.

Unlike many of CPW’s other grant programs, which often target a specific applicant such as outdoor recreation or conservation organizations, the new human-bear conflict grant program has broad eligibility criteria.

Local governments and agencies, tribes, nonprofits, universities, and even businesses, homeowners associations and individuals are eligible for grants.

“We wanted to maintain maximum flexibility (and) we wanted to see a variety of applications and really creative solutions and projects,” Cannon, who is helping lead the grant program, said in an interview. “We wanted to open it up and not leave anybody out. There’s a lot of opportunity for people to kind of come together and find solutions that that’ll work for everyone.”

CPW also designed the grant program’s broad eligibility criteria to account for varied approaches to human-bear conflict across Colorado’s communities in an effort to identify model solutions, said John Livingston, spokesman for CPW’s Southwest region.

“Every community in Colorado is unique. In each community, how they would look to maybe address bear-human conflicts might be a little bit different,” he said.

In 2021, the Colorado Legislature led by House District 59 State Rep. Barbara McLachlan passed legislation that transferred $25 million from the state’s general fund into natural resources programs, including $3.5 million to CPW’s wildlife cash fund. Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law in June, paving the way for the new grants.

“This is a huge opportunity for local governments and partners to work with Parks and Wildlife to reduce human-bear conflicts to keep communities and property safer and better protect Colorado’s iconic black bear populations,” Polis said in a CPW news release.

CPW’s Human-Bear Conflict Reduction Community Grant Program follows a year of reduced human-bear conflict across much of Colorado.

CPW received 3,701 reports of sightings and conflicts in Colorado in 2021, a 28% decrease from the previous two-year average, according to the agency.

Bear reports in Southwest Colorado were down 51.2% compared with the average of the two previous years, while the agency’s northeast region saw a decline of 38.2% and the southeast region a 39.8% reduction.

CPW officials attributed the decline to abundant food sources, which helped to limit interactions.

Northwest Colorado, which was hit by drought, reported an 11.7% increase in bear reports and conflicts from 2020 to 2021, but last year’s 1,834 bear reports were still fewer than those reported in 2019, according to CPW.

However, even amid a down year for human-bear conflict, a 39-year-old Durango woman, Laney Malavolta, was killed in a bear attack north of Durango near Trimble Lane in May 2021.

Garbage and other attractants continue to pose a public safety risk and a danger to bears themselves, Cannon said.

“Garbage is hands down one of the biggest attractions and causes of human-bear conflict,” she said. “Projects that look to secure garbage from bears and can handle garbage in such a way that it’s not drawing bears into neighborhoods and areas with dense human populations (will) be prioritized pretty high.”

Projects in Southwest Colorado that purchase bear-proof trash cans for communities are one potential destination for funding, Livingston said.

“Durango has taken some really good steps in recent years to get bear-proof trash cans. Obviously, there’s still more work that can be done not just within Durango, but around the county as well,” he said. “… Those can be expensive for communities to invest in, but they have a proven track record of cutting down on some of those (conflict) situations.”

Educational campaigns, fruit tree harvests and efforts to protect livestock, including bees and chickens, could also be potential projects for communities to consider, Livingston and Cannon said.

One of the more creative solutions Cannon has heard is a proposal to help owners secure their second home cabins, which can be both a source of food for bears and a source of property damage for owners, with reinforced doors or bars on windows, she said.

Projects that partner with local governments and that bring groups together to tackle human-bear conflict more effectively will yield strong applications, Livingston said.

“Certainly having partnerships with city and county governments along with some of those groups or individuals is always a benefit to know that that community is going to be able to kind of keep implementing a plan going forward,” he said.

Local support is one of the priorities CPW is looking for in grant applications, as is regional diversity, Cannon said.

“We’re certainly considering geographical distribution and just trying to get at different parts of the state to see what different communities can do,” she said.

CPW’s hope is that successful applications and projects can extend beyond the grant cycle and serve as models that other Colorado communities can follow.

“Those (projects) that look like they have a pretty clear path forward, are proven that they can help be a solution to conflicts and are something that other communities can look at as a model moving forward are probably going to be pretty strong proposals,” Livingston said.

CPW will host a virtual information session from 6 to 8 p.m. March 24 to discuss the grant program and potential projects.

Applications are available on CPW’s website and applicants must submit their applications to Cannon by 5 p.m. May 6. CPW will then notify grant recipients in June.

Anyone with questions or who needs help applying can contact Cannon via email at kristin.cannon@state.co.us or by phone at (303) 291-7313.

ahannon@durangoherald.com