SWD Guest Q&A — Bears Of Durango Documentary Film

You’d be hard-pressed to find a Durangoan who doesn’t have a bear story.  You’ve either come into contact with them on a hike, pulled into your driveway after work to find one eating apples in your front yard, sleeping in a tree, heard one climbing your front porch to pilfer the bird feeder, or discovered evidence of their foraging –like trash cans overturned or restaurant dumpsters rolled away in the middle of the night.  You might even wake up to the sound of your car horn honking to find a bear locked inside.  They can sometimes open a car door, but if the door closes behind them they get stuck and can ‘re-decorate’ the interior in no time.

In 2011 a team of wildlife researchers set out on a six-year investigation of how humans and black bears can co-exist, and how human expansion, food shortages and other factors change the behavior of the bears.  The findings of this team inspired the documentary film Bears Of Durango.  It’s currently making a big impression on the film festival circuit with Best Human-Wildlife Interaction, Spirit and Audience Choice awards, and a significant portion of footage is actual video and cell phone bear encounters filmed by locals and donated to the project.

In order to locate and study the bears, team leader and biologist Heather Johnson needed an expert tracker.  She found her crackerjack bloodhound in a Colorado Parks and Wildlife researcher who plays a large part in the film, with a bigger than life personality on and off the screen.  His experience in hunting and tracking animals made him the perfect candidate, and describing him as outdoors-y is a glaring understatement.  He used to hunt bear, but after his experience with the making of Bears Of Durango he’s had a change of heart.  We are pleased to introduce, Lyle Willmarth …

The questions are always the same.  The answers are always unique.

Lyle: I am originally from Wisconsin. What brought me to CO and the southwest is the variety of wildlife and scenery. In Wisconsin we hunted white-tailed deer and black bears. Colorado has nine big game species.

Lyle: As a child I loved to hunt and fish — I was mostly self-taught. My grandpa took me out occasionally and taught me a few things. It was a passion. I used to bring hunting magazines to school and read them inside of my school books (until I got caught)! Because of the amount of time I spent in the field following animal tracks (backward) I came to be an “expert” (or at least a really good) naturalist. Carnivores (big and small) are particularly smart and were particularly interesting to me.

After moving to Colorado – the local Division of Wildlife office found me by word of mouth and recruited me for several jobs, including feeding and baiting deer and elk in severe winters, trapping nuisance wildlife, etc. In 1993, Colorado’s bear researcher (Tom Beck) recruited me for Colorado’s most intensive bear studies to date. I tracked bears on the Uncompaghre Plateau and in Middle Park (near Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park). I also helped the University of Wyoming with a bear study focused on hibernation. After that — I moved to SW Colorado and worked on lynx reintroduction in the San Juan Mountains (near Creede, CO) and eventually the Durango bear study.

Lyle: Crunchy tacos make me feel more like a man. (LOL!)

Lyle: I enjoy scouting the mountains and looking for Indian ruins. Places like Hovenweep in Colorado and Cedar Mesa in UT are some of my favorite desert places. The San Juan National Forest provides a lot of places for scouting and I am in the process of exploring it all — I don’t have a favorite place.  I also enjoy boating, fishing and exploring Navajo State Park.

Lyle: I’m not a margarita guy. I prefer Leinenkugel’s.  I guess I haven’t given up completely on Wisconsin.

Lyle: Mesa Verde – It’s close and there is something for my every mood: long hikes, short hikes and ruins you can drive to when it gets hot.

Lyle: Verde.  My favorite is a hamburger smothered in it!

Lyle: I’ve always been interested in bears. Learning more about them than I ever thought possible has been great. But, meeting and teaching other people who like bears has been the most satisfying. (I never thought I would be a teacher – after I got whacked on the back of the head for reading hunting magazines in school.) I hope that by talking to folks I’ve inspired them to take actions to keep bears and people out of trouble.

Lyle: As a bear trapper (live traps) I try to out think them and outsmart them. I try to think about where they are going to be before they get there. The home range of a female bear could be about 6400 acres (10 square miles). I have to get her to go in a 3′ x 4′ box.

Lyle: I love Alaska and I have been there 5 times. I would like a bush pilot to drop me off in the middle of nowhere and spend a few weeks – unplugged, catching fish for dinner and photographing wildlife. I’d also like to see wild polar bears — I’ll save the rest of the world for a time when I’ve explored all of North America.

Lyle: I haven’t made it to the Grand Staircase of the Escalante yet – that’s on my list.

Lyle: Older and wiser people. You can learn a lot from people who have lived on the land or in a place for a long time. Listen with your ears and not your mouth!

Lyle: I hate corn!

Lyle: Corn tortillas and cucumbers! (I hate the smell of both.)

Lyle: I don’t even know what it is.  I’ve never heard of the band either.

Lyle: Oscar’s in Durango.

Lyle: Green chile. There is nothing like the smell of green chiles roasting on every street corner in August/September.

Lyle: If you say that “someday” you’re going to ________, you will never do it or go there. If you want to go/do – make a plan and go do it!

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Bears of Durango Website

Photo Credits: Bears Of Durango, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and Lucy Hall

Note: The movie is not yet for sale, as it is accepted into film festivals for the remainder of the year.