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Yes, it’s legal to hunt a bear this young in Colorado

EDITOR'S NOTE: The image in this story may be disturbing to some viewers. Please view with caution.
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GRAND JUNCTION — A hunter from Whitewater, Colorado celebrated her first bear catch by posting a photo of it in a closed Facebook group called “I Hunt Colorado.” The bear is young, which prompted some angry comments by others in the group.

“I got a lot of positive feedback, but I also got a lot of negative feedback as far as people assuming it was a bear cub, and that I was doing something illegal,” said the hunter, Jewel Phillips, who shot the bear near Buckeye Reservoir in far western Colorado. “I probably got three or four private messages about how unethical we were and how we’re disrespecting the wildlife and things of that nature.”

Colorado Parks and Wildlife says only certain bears are off limits once a hunter has the proper big game license from the state. A bear accompanied by one or more cubs or bears under a year old cannot be hunted. CPW enforces this by requiring all hunters to bring their bear catch to a CPW officer for inspection. Phillips says she went out of her way to make that happen. She says the officer thought her bear was a year and a half to two years old.

“I just took the head and hide and everything to CPW Tuesday morning. They did their examination and pulled the tooth and gave me some paperwork. We had to discuss where we shot it, approximate location, they have a mapping system and get as close as you can,” she explained.

Bear Hunt (Photo Credit: Jewel Phillips)

The tooth helps determine the age of the bear and Phillips says she won’t know for sure for about six months. The specific location helps CPW keep an eye on the statewide population. CPW records 7,123 licenses were drawn for the 2018 bear hunting season. There were 11,862 available.

Other data from CPW shows dozens of bears about the same age as Phillips’ were legally hunted in 2017. There were also 24 bears under a year old that were killed. Those are not legal. Penalties can include fines, loss of preference points and potential prosecution.

Despite this, Phillips took flak from fellow hunters. She says some even gave her a hard time for being a female hunter.

“It's supposed to be a page about supporting fellow hunters, and to get that kind of feedback was really a shock,” she said, grateful that the page administrator decided to delete some of the negativity. “It was a big shock that somebody would make comments about me being a woman and hunting. That was completely shocking to me, that in this day and age that would be a comment.”

Archery and rifle limited draw bear hunting season started on September 2 and ends on the 30th. Muzzeloader starts on the 8th and ends on the 16th. Concurrent rifle season starts October 13 and ends November 18.

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