By Josie Taris, The Aspen Times
Whatap a chokeberry shrub in comparison to half an Italian sub? Not very satisfying and harder to find, at least according to the bears of the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center.
About 25-30 bears live in the hills surrounding the piles of compost, concrete, and garbage at the landfill. Over its 60-year existence, the bears have reproduced multiple generations of offspring dependent on human food that feast on the working face — the trash — of the landfill.
The bears have never been aggressive to landfill employees or visitors, but they are a nuisance to nearby neighborhoods and occasionally pose a threat. Wildlife advocates also worry about the welfare of the bears who will never return to their natural food source after feasting on human food for so long.
The county is taking another stab at what do about the bears, but the most likely solution still forces an impossible choice: 1.) build a fence to protect future bears and condemn today’s bears, or 2.) don’t build a fence and ensure the relative safety of those bears and surrounding neighborhoods but condemn future bears to dependency on human food and waste.
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