“Bear Attack” ice cream and Slogar fried chicken help capture local problem bear

Bruin’s main diet apparently birdseed and kibble

You can’t make this stuff up. The Crested Butte Marshal’s Office may have found the secret ingredient to trapping the pesky bruins in town: Meadow Gold’s “Bear Attack” ice cream.

According to Crested Butte chief marshal Tom Martin, the Bear Attack ice cream along with some Slogar chicken was used to attract one of the problem bears in town and trap him last Friday morning.
“We think this was one of the bears that was trying to get into people’s garages and houses,” Martin said. “He was identified by some property owners as a problem bear.”
The marshals set the trap Thursday night over by the town shops on the northeast side of town. The bear had wreaked havoc with the dumpsters by the Mountain Express offices the previous two nights, so the officers figured the bear would return for more goodies. They were correct.
After securing the dumpsters, marshals baited the cage trap with ice cream and chicken. It worked. “We found the bear in the trap Friday morning and the Department of Wildlife came by and hauled him off,” Martin said.
According to Gunnison’s district wildlife manager for the DOW, Chris Parmeter, the trapped bear was a 305-pound male. “This was definitely a problem bear,” Parmeter explained. “The two nights previous to when he was trapped, a bear had tried to get into three houses one night and four houses the other night. The property owners saw him in the cage and said it was the same bear. This bear was probably in about 20 houses.”
Parmeter said this bear had broken into several mudrooms looking for food and had in fact used several ways to get in, including breaking windows. “This bear was certainly habituated to going into houses and that made him a dangerous bear,” he said. “When you have that situation, the bear is not a good candidate for relocation. So, this bear was put down.”
Parmeter said the only bears that might be relocated after being trapped in a town are young bears that haven’t made the jump from trying to get into trashcans to trying to break and enter people’s homes.
“When I cut into the bear’s stomach, aside from the stuff in the trap, it was filled with birdseed and dog food,” Parmeter said. “So we can surmise that people’s bird feeders attracted him close to homes and a lot of people have pet food in their mud rooms, so he got used to it. He was regularly looking for food in houses.”
Parmeter and Martin both say it has been a slow summer for bear problems compared to recent years. But this trapped bruin isn’t the only hungry bear in Crested Butte. Martin said there were several incidents reported over the weekend after the bear had been trapped. “They involved a couple of cars and some trash cans, so there is still a problem out there,” Martin said.
“There will always be bears in the Crested Butte area,” Parmeter said. “It is part of living where we live. We just don’t want them in people’s mudrooms, or even worse, bedrooms and kitchens.”
“People still need to be aware that bears are attracted to town and they need to bring in their feeders at night and lock their garbage up,” added Martin. “We still have one or two bears in town causing problems. Everyone still has to pay attention and take proper precautions.”