Durango eases bear defenses, approves electric fencing and unwelcome mats

Durango homeowners just got a tool they have wanted for years: electric fencing and bear unwelcome mats are now allowed inside city limits, just as bears are starting to show up earlier and stick around longer on the edge of town.

On April 13, Durango City Council unanimously approved ordinances that establish standards and a permit process for wildlife deterrence equipment. Before the change, those tools were common across La Plata County but restricted in the city of Durango, which left residents with fewer options when bears kept working back to the same food source.

That matters because the county’s bear problem is not abstract. La Plata County logged 1,549 bear sightings and incident reports in 2025, a 448 percent jump over the county’s five-year average. More than 60 percent of those reports involved human food attractants, and nearly half were tied to trash. Human-caused incidents led to the deaths of 53 bears in the county last year, including vehicle collisions and wildlife management actions. Colorado Parks and Wildlife euthanized 19 bears and relocated 22 in La Plata County, more than in any other county in the state.

Bryan Peterson of Bear Smart Durango has argued that the biggest driver of conflict is human food availability, and the numbers back him up. Bear Smart Durango fielded 367 bear sightings and incident reports in 2025, while Peterson said bears are now turning up in Durango in early March, weeks ahead of the old pattern. For neighborhoods near trailheads, drainage corridors, fruit trees and the urban edge, that longer season means a longer stretch of watching trash cans, grills, pet food and bird feeders like hawks.

The new ordinance will not fix sloppy habits, and it will not make a bear-resistant trash can optional. But it does give property owners a practical way to protect places where bears keep winning easy meals. That is the real-world upside for people trying to keep a pear tree from getting stripped, or a compost pile from becoming a nightly buffet. Rachel Turiel described a bear ripping down a pear-tree branch and returning the next night to demolish her apple tree, the kind of repeated damage that turns a nuisance into a pattern.

Durango has been moving this direction for years. In 2022, Colorado Parks and Wildlife gave the La Plata County bear working group a $200,000 grant for conflict-reduction tools, including secure trash containers, electric fencing and unwelcome mats, with materials planned for 60 fence projects. Statewide, Colorado Parks and Wildlife counted 5,259 bear reports between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2025, the busiest year of human-bear interaction in Colorado since 2019. Durango’s rule change gives the city one more chance to get ahead of that curve before peak bear season hits.