DENVER (KDVR) — Hibernation is a lie-bernation.
When people think of bears hibernating, they can almost see the cartoon image of a bear, belly stuffed with food and cozying up in its cave for the rest of winter, but bears in Colorado have not embraced that lifestyle.
Bears in Colorado technically don’t hibernate, but they aren’t far off, and Colorado’s crazy weather has something to do with it. There are days in winter when the weather in Colorado can spontaneously rise to the 70s and even 80s.
This can affect the bear’s ability to stay asleep. Rather than going into hibernation, Colorado bears go into torpor. Torpor sees bears wake up and leave their dens to find and eat food.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Kara Van Hoose told FOX31 that there is not a standard number of times the bear will wake up, and the differences vary from bear to bear.
Another difference between torpor and hibernation is that if food is still available to the bears, they’re going to find it. They have no reason to sleep if they have continuous access to food.
Van Hoose said that is a big reason that CPW asks people who live in bear-populated areas to be very conscious when doing things like taking out the trash or leaving food in areas that can be accessed by the scavenging bears.
Locking or securing the food or trash is integral to making sure that bears don’t continue to search. Removing non-natural food resources prompts the bears to go into torpor in their typical pattern.
Even if it’s the middle of winter, you never know — a bear could get up for a midnight snack and find itself searching near your home when you would least expect it.
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