Bear necessities: Drought pushes hungry animals closer to humans

Wildfires. Smoky skies. Lawn-watering limits. Fewer slopes to ski. Coloradans have increasingly lived with the effects of dire drought.Now, bears are emerging as the latest bellwether of a warming West.Colorado has logged nearly twice as many bear encounters this year compared with last. Dwindling natural food sources have sent them sniffing toward kitchens and garbage cans, wildlife experts say. Seemingly desperate, the animals have even shown up in cities. On Sunday, Denver police officers helped coax a black bear from a tree. Why We Wrote This Drought in the Western United States has hit food sources for black bears hard. Their increasingly desperate search for sustenance before winter is driving far more bear-human encounters in Colorado. This month alone in Colorado, black bears have broken into homes, bitten people, and pilfered from a pie shop. Between January and mid-August last year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported 3,115 “bear sightings and conflicts.” This year, that count has nearly doubled to 6,129.While drought reduces fruit, nuts, and grasses for bears, wildfires have also wiped out some of their meals. Along with heat waves, dismally low levels of snowpack – a vital trickle-down reservoir for the region – have contributed to dry conditions. Like other Western states, Colorado has had its warmest year on record, since 1895, a federal drought monitor reported this past spring. Colorado Parks and Wildlife A bear explores a deck in Colorado in 2024. As of mid-August 2026, state wildlife officials report nearly twice as many bear encounters compared with the same period in 2025. “We might expect an increase in wildlife sightings in general,” beyond bears, says Cassandre Venumière-Lefebvre, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University. One furry guest recently came to campus on move-in day.Picking fruit as soon as it’s ripe from backyard trees and securing trash in bear-resistant cans can help deter lurkers, says Dr. Venumière-Lefebvre. When the animals repeatedly get grub from homes, the state wildlife agency warns, they can “lose their natural wariness of people” and learn to return.Colorado only has black bears. Generally, if it hasn’t seen you yet, “it’s best to just quietly walk away,” the biologist says. If the bear is aware, “make yourself bigger, yell, ‘Hey bear!’ and then move away calmly.”Wildlife officials in the state can euthanize bears after repeat incursions into developed areas. Still, says Dr. Venumière-Lefebvre, black bears are “pretty wary of people.”But that hasn’t stopped the hungry animals from venturing close.In her Denver neighborhood Sunday, Kathryn Muldoon watched a bear perch itself in a tree – a few blocks from a highway – as authorities arrived.It’s crazy the bear made it this far and “no one noticed,” says Ms. Muldoon. Still, the police and wildlife officials “handled it very well.”Eventually, the 100-pound male bear, tranquilized, flopped down into a tarp.“It didn’t have the smoothest landing, but the bear is ok!” Colorado Parks and Wildlife said on X.How did it even get there?“We don’t really have any clues,” says spokesperson Kara Van Hoose. Colorado Parks and Wildlife A bear approaches a bird feeder in Colorado in May 2025. Picking fruit as soon as it’s ripe from backyard trees and securing trash in bear-resistant cans can also help deter the lurking animals. Famished bearsThe bears are meant to binge right now. In a phase called hyperphagia, the state says, bears can spend up to 20 hours daily searching for food and stocking up winter fat. A good diet helps them reproduce and cubs to survive.As omnivores, they’ll eat everything from berries to baby deer. And, apparently, frozen pizza from Diane Smooke’s duplex in Edwards, west of Denver.Earlier this month, Ms. Smooke says, a bear climbed through an open window and trashed her kitchen. The animal also nudged knobs on her electric stove, which caused food wrappers strewn on top to smolder.“It was a mess,” says the retired occupational therapist. More than 20 years in town, Ms. Smooke says this was a first. “He ate half an apple and put it back in the fruit bowl.”Wildlife officials eventually trapped the bear, which had also broken into her neighbor’s place, she says.To help with deterrence, a new state law that took effect this month increases consequences for humans. The law lowers the burden of proof from “intentionally” to simply “knowingly” leaving food in the open when there’s a reasonable chance it could lure bears.Over the weekend, the state wildlife agency posted an update: The Denver bear had been released to the wild. A video shows him bounding away through drought-dry grass.