EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Manitou Springs, as well as an El Paso County business, is among 17 recipients of $1 million in state grants aimed at reducing conflicts between people and bears.<\/p>\n
Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) announced the 2026 recipients of the Human-Bear Conflict Reduction Community Grant on Tuesday. The program will fund projects across Colorado to help communities prevent bear encounters and keep wildlife and residents safe, according to officials. <\/p>\n
Manitou Springs received $100,000 to expand its efforts to reduce human-bear conflicts. According to officials, the project will launch a city-wide initiative to distribute bear-resistant residential trash bins and replace noncompliant public trash receptacles throughout downtown and at high-traffic trailheads.<\/p>\n
The project builds on previous efforts in Manitou Springs to prevent bears from accessing trash, a common attractant that can bring wildlife into populated areas.<\/p>\n
Mountaindale RV Resort, located between El Paso and Fremont counties, received $26,293. The resort plans to replace damaged waste infrastructure with secure, bear-resistant dumpsters to prevent bears from accessing food and other waste, the Governor’s office confirms. <\/p>\n
The program was established in 2021 to support local initiatives focused on preventing bear encounters. This year, CPW received 27 applications requesting a combined $2.2 million in funding. Seventeen projects were selected to receive grants, with 12 receiving their full requested amounts and five receiving partial funding.<\/p>\n
“Our quality of life, plentiful outdoor recreation opportunities, and jaw-dropping landscapes attract both families and animals to our state,” Polis said. “That’s why these common-sense and data-driven strategies are so important to reduce human-bear conflicts and ensure that all Coloradans and wildlife are safe.”<\/p>\n
The grant program is funded in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For the full list of recipients, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store.<\/a> Android users can download it from Google Play here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Manitou Springs, as well as an El Paso County business, is among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-451379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}