You may not bite the hand that feeds you, but wildlife might!

By Amy Hadden Marsh and Myki Jones Sopris Sun Correspondents

April in Colorado brings longer, warmer days, a hint of green to the landscape and a chance — between the occasional snow storm — to get outside and shake off some cabin fever. It’s also when local ungulates raise their young and venture into lower elevations to escape from snowier climes and feed on new plants. Bears come out of their dens, hungry and looking for food. And, as humans seek hiking or biking trails instead of ski slopes, opportunities for human-wildlife conflicts increase.

You may have heard about the mountain lion in Chaffee County that surprised two vacationers in a backyard hot tub one night in March. The man suffered minor injuries and the cat ran away after the couple raised a commotion. The vacationers did not purposely attract the lion but stories about the dangers of feeding or photographing wildlife during shoulder seasons abound.

wildlife managers.

As for non-bruin animals, like birds and ungulates, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) continues to advise locals and tourists not to approach or feed them.

According to Matt Yamashita, CPW Area Wildlife Manager for Glenwood Springs, one of the biggest misconceptions around humans feeding wildlife is that we think we are helping when we see an animal that looks sick or injured, especially around springtime when ungulates are shedding their winter coats and can look ragged or even sick.

“Their winter coats are fairly sleek and dense fur, and when they shed that it looks like chunks of them have fallen off. “[It] looks like they're wasting away to nothing,” he told The Sopris Sun.

Due to this common misconception, many offer food they feel will help the animals. Often, with deer specifically, the feed contains corn. Deer lack an enzyme that allows for the digestion of corn. “They cannot digest and utilize that as a food source,” explained Yamashita. “So when people do that, it makes the animal feel like they've consumed an entire meal but they can't turn it into energy so they'll starve to death with a full stomach.” waterfowl. “[Scientists] assume it's kind of a mix of the waterfowl that are migrating or in our area,” she said. “They carry different viruses and can pass it on to domestic ducks.”

Smaller birds are not at risk if you keep your feeders clean. Harris emphasized that helping wild birds is all about education, from identifying bird species to religiously cleaning feeders to using the proper kind of seed. “If you feed birds, feed them healthy things,” she said. “The very best thing, if you only can do one thing, would be black sunflower seeds.”

Harris said that feeding wild birds is a little different than feeding other wild animals. “Birds are different because they migrate,” she explained. ”They need food sources and they're such a good learning tool if you're careful.”

Look for more on local deer, elk, bear and fish concerns in future stories.

The New York Post reported last October that a five-point bull elk attacked a crowd of tourists in Estes Park. The elk was stressed due to rutting season and trying to keep other bulls away from his harem. A photo of a deer with its head caught in a jack-olantern surfaced in Sky-Hi News in November. A shocker of a story emerged in May, 2021 when a black bear attacked, killed and ate part of a woman out walking her dogs near Durango. In 2009, a 74-yearold woman was killed after intentionally attracting bears to her Ouray home.

We’ve all heard stories of bears breaking into kitchens or strolling through living rooms but death by black bear is rare in our state. Out There Colorado reports that, over the last century, there were five fatal bear attacks in Colorado. In 2020, a third of the 4,943 interactions between bears and humans in the Centennial State were trash related.

Trash. It’s what’s for dinner…for unlucky bears. And, it’s all our fault. An unsecured dumpster or compost bin is one of the most common ways humans feed bears. So is leaving food in a tent while camping. Usually, the bears are relocated or, worse, killed by

Bridget O’Rourke, CPW Public Information Officer, agrees.“It's really important that wildlife stick to their natural habitat and that they find food which is going to be digestible,” she said.

Feeding wildlife also habituates animals to humans, meaning animals end up associating humans with food. Pet food and dirty grills on the deck, a box of peaches on the porch or unsecured compost bins and trash cans at the end of the driveway can spread disease among animals and attract predators to towns and neighborhoods. Yamashita pointed to the CPW website for resources on wildlife safety. One visit to www.cpw. state.co.us can educate and help ensure that humans and animals stay healthy.

He added that Avian Influenza has been running rampant in the U.S., especially in Colorado. “Bird feeders tend to concentrate birds and bring in multiple species in kind of unnatural congregations,” he said. “By concentrating birds around bird feeders, it may actually serve to propagate and host that kind of disease in greater numbers.”

Mary Harris, chair of Roaring Fork Audubon, agrees. “If you concentrate a lot of birds together and one of them has a virus, especially our house finches, then you will spread the virus,” she explained. But, she added that the latest Avian Influenza is affecting