Salida Gunshop Podcast // Clip // Field to Table

Bear in the Freezer, Not a Statistic: A Colorado Outfitter on Eating What You Hunt

Nearly 40 years in elk country, and one simple rule: if you take an animal, it feeds people.

Watch the full conversation

Jenny Burbey runs Highlands Unlimited outside Durango and has been putting hunters on elk in the San Juan Mountains for nearly 40 years. When our conversation turned to bears, she noted there have been lots of bear issues this year, and that they have been increasing as the bear population increases. Then she put it plainly.

What Jenny says

“I would rather that bear be in my freezer and in my stew and in my breakfast sausage, and not in a den starving to death this coming winter.”

Jenny Burbey VIDEO 27:42

Her hope is that those animals become something useful, “part of the general big spider web of life.” One of our hosts finishes the thought: the alternative is a bear that ends up “part of a statistic for a nuisance bear.”

Using every bit isn’t just good manners. In Colorado, it’s the law.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife requires hunters to prepare all edible parts of a harvested bear for human consumption. At a minimum, that means the four quarters, the tenderloins and the backstraps CPW. Killing big game and abandoning it is a felony in Colorado, and it is illegal to take only the hide or head from a harvested bear CPW.

Fall is when bears are busiest putting on weight. Starting in mid-August they enter a feeding frenzy, and many forage up to 20 hours a day on fruits and nuts to build fat for winter CPW. That thick fat layer is also why CPW tells hunters to skin a bear right away and trim the heavy fat, because the hide and fat hold heat and can spoil the meat even on cold nights CPW.

From the field to the breakfast table, safely

Bear is one of the wild meats that can carry Trichinella, a parasite killed by proper cooking CDC. Cook bear to an internal temperature of at least 165°F and check it with a thermometer, since dark meat makes color a poor guide CDC. Freezing may not kill the parasite in wild game, and curing or smoking alone won’t reliably do it either, so cook your sausage all the way through and clean your grinder after every use CDC.

That is what food sovereignty looks like up close: a family that knows exactly where dinner came from, and an animal that feeds people instead of going to waste. Hear the rest of Jenny’s story, from Newport Beach to the San Juans, in What Colorado’s First Gentleman Told an Elk Outfitter at the Capitol, and learn how hunters’ gear purchases help pay for conservation in The 11% Gun Tax. Amendment 83, on Colorado’s Nov. 3 ballot, would make hunting and fishing the preferred way to manage wildlife populations BLUE BOOK; our Amendment 83 explainer walks through it.

Quotes are from the episode; the timestamp links to that moment. Bear rules summarized from Colorado Parks and Wildlife; food safety guidance from the CDC. Always check current CPW regulations before you hunt.