Bear with us, we’re about finished with wildlife commission actions from earlier this month.

And speaking of bears, our last topic will be bear-hunting licenses and the incredible increase in licenses doled out by the commission for private land hunters.

With a growing awareness that more bears are being killed each year on private land, the commission approved a 2.7 percent increase (to 10,675) in bear licenses, with most of those private land-only tags.

Last year, 1,034 bears were reported killed in Colorado, including 615 by hunters and 125 by landowners protecting crops and livestock.

A DOW handout said 418 bears were killed last year in non-hunter actions. That number includes roadkills, poaching and “unknown causes,” definitely negative interactions.

“Harvest is up,” reported Rick Kahn, acting Colorado Division of Wildlife state terrestrial section manager. “The take last year was the best ever. We think we have the (bear) population to sustain (additional) harvest.”

Private land-only licenses jumped 335 percent, from 130 in 2007 to 565 for 2008. One reason is to give hunters more a chance to harvest troublesome bears, Kahn said.

He said that all too often, the state has to rely on the federal predator control agency Wildlife Services to kill bears when it would be better for sportsmen to have a chance to harvest that bear.

“Due to the number of non-hunter killed bears, we’re trying to force that to license buyers instead of Wildlife Services,” Kahn said. “We want to transfer (game-)damaged bears to harvest bears.”

Kahn said license numbers are set after studying the results of postseason harvest surveys by hunters. The record harvest was in 2002 when hunters killed 857 bears.

Some conservation groups asked the DOW to back off a bit in license numbers, considering the high harvest last year and the slowness with which bears reproduce.

Concerned that drought might be affecting the reproduction and recruitment of bears, the groups asked the agency to expand its bear research.

Also raised was the issue of increased human encroachment into historical bear habitat, which leads to more human-bear conflicts in which the bear inevitably becomes the loser.

Kahn said a bear study in the Roaring Fork Valley will be expanded to two other as-yet undetermined areas. The state’s black bear population is estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 animals, he said.

Blue Mesa fighting zebra mussels

With boaters more and more aware of the dangers of transporting aquatic invaders, Curecanti National Recreation Area now has an operating boat decontamination unit.

The hot-water wash, which uses high pressure, 140-degree water to kill zebra and quagga mussels, is available near the Elk Creek Visitor Center on the road to the campground. Others unit are planned for Stevens Creek and the Lake Fork marina.

Blue Mesa is Colorado’s largest body of water and one of the most popular boating and fishing destinations in the state. The Park Service there has an ongoing anti-mussel education program, which includes signs along U.S. Highway 50 and at the marinas, along with personal contact from park rangers.

Starting this spring, all watercraft on the lake, which includes boats, jet skis, canoes, kayaks, rafts, catamarans and windsurf boards, must be certified mussel-free.

For more information, as well as the certification forms, go online at www.nps.gov/cure.

Kokanee salmon fry by the millions

More than 2.7 million kokanee salmon fry were released April 28 into the East River as part of the annual return of young salmon to Blue Mesa Reservoir.

The 2-inch fry are spawned and raised at Roaring Judy Hatchery north of Gunnison and released on a moonless night to decrease predation.

The release this year was a bit delayed waiting for ice to go off Blue Mesa Reservoir, said DOW aquatic biologist Dan Brauch.

“It was a little later this year because we wanted to wait for the open water, which is important for survival and food,” Brauch said.

Open water provides more escape from predation, particularly by brown trout.

Brauch said the 2.7 million fry are the most the hatchery can comfortably raise.

The DOW also has been working with area ranchers to prevent the fry from being trapped in irrigation ditches.

“I think we had only two ditches running, so we had very few problems,” Brauch said. “The river was pretty high so I imagine the fish had a fast ride to the reservoir.”

Kokanee salmon spend three to four years maturing in the reservoir and then will return up the Gunnison River to the East and then to Roaring Judy.

Brauch said a small fish ladder built on the Gunnison last year to enable the returning salmon to navigate a series of rapids will see more work this spring in anticipation of high water later in the season.

“It’s designed to survive some pretty high water but we want to make sure it stays around,” Brauch said.

On Friday, a day of cool weather had dropped flows on the Gunnison River near Gunnison to 1,930 cubic feet per second, a little down from the approximately 2,600 the river was running Thursday.

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E-mail Dave Buchanan at dbuchanan@gjds.com.