A quick bear-related update

Last week I posted about my bro, the police chief in Aspen. I included a chart of bear sightings (that's the kind of action the cops up there get to deal with).

Just for fun, here's the chart again:

Annual Bear Complaints	2007	2008	2009	2010
	638	82	713	20
Monthly Bear Complaints
January	0	0	0	0
February	0	0	0	0
March	0	1	9	1
April	8	5	17	19
May	7	9	10
June	40	10	28
July	180	22	138
August	247	18	289
September	110	0	56
October	44	4	16
November	2	13	2
December	0	0	1

I was very curious about the lower level of bear complaints in 2008, so asked El Jefe de Policia and the answer, of course, is simple once you know it.

Apparently in 2007 and 2009, the area had hard spring frosts, which killed off many of the berries that the bears like to dine on. This forced them to look further afield for food: Aspen city. 2008, though, had no such late frosts so the bears could hang tight in the mountains.

Just in case you want to know more about Aspen bears, they have their own website.