Bears Move Into Western Towns

6,129. That is how many public bear reports Colorado Parks and Wildlife logged from Jan. 1 through Aug. 13, nearly double the 3,115 reports filed during the same stretch last year ². It is not a count of bears. It is a count of phone calls, sightings, trash raids, porch visits and midnight rattles at the bird feeder — and it means that across much of the state, living with bears has gone from seasonal background noise to a daily negotiation ².

ABC News described the increase as a 97% jump ³. By Aug. 20, the statewide total had pushed past 7,000 reports, compared with about 5,400 at the same point in 2025 ⁷. In the Denver metro area, reports roughly tripled, a sign that this is not only a mountain-town problem anymore ⁹. The two Colorado totals differ because they cover different end dates, Aug. 13 versus Aug. 20, not because either count is wrong ²⁷.

Utah is feeling the same pressure, on a smaller but steeper curve. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and its partners had responded 168 times by Aug. 25, more than double the 83 responses recorded during all of last year ⁵. That comparison matters because the 2026 figure was reached with more than four months still left in the year, including the hungriest months of all ⁵.

The encounters have not all been sightings. Colorado saw a cluster of attacks in August, including three attacks in three consecutive days ³. Four attacks were reported in the High Country — in Aspen, Snowmass, Steamboat Springs and EagleVail — during a month when bear activity was already setting records amid drought ⁷. The available sources describe the attacks as part of an alarming rise in human-bear contact, even as officials stress that attacks remain rare compared with thousands of non-violent reports ³⁷.

The timing is biological as much as meteorological. Starting in summer 2026, black bears across the West moved toward towns just as they entered hyperphagia, the fall feeding season when bears seek calories almost continuously to prepare for winter ⁴⁶¹⁰. A bear in hyperphagia is not wandering. It is working, testing every smell for energy, and a suburban street full of trash cans, grills, pet bowls and birdseed can read like a better forest than the forest itself ⁶¹⁰.

Officials point to a thin forest behind that shift. They cite ongoing severe drought, record-low mountain snowpack and wildfire, along with poor berry and acorn crops that left bears searching for human food sources such as trash ^2561011. Colorado State University researchers describe drought driving bears into urban spaces in search of food, while Utah officials similarly link dry conditions and scarce natural forage to bears showing up where people live ⁶⁵. Late-season failures in berries, nuts and other natural foods were central to accounts from Colorado towns watching bears dine in trash rather than in the hills ¹¹¹⁰.

Biologists are careful about the limits of that explanation. Colorado officials note that dry conditions and food failure do not explain every encounter, a reminder that bears also learn, remember and return ². A bear that found calories behind a garage last year may check again in a wet year. A sow with cubs may tolerate more risk near houses. Drought explains the push, but memory and opportunity help explain the pattern ²⁶.

Prevention guidance from Utah and Colorado is strikingly consistent, because the attractants are the same. Secure garbage and keep it inaccessible until collection day, remove bird feeders and outdoor pet food, clean grills and store them where bears cannot smell them, lock homes and vehicles, leash dogs and report problems early before a curious bear becomes a regular ⁵⁶. None of this is new advice. What is new is how little slack there is for ignoring it when the woods are this empty ⁵⁶.

The sharpest warning concerns feeding, intentional or accidental. Wildlife officials explicitly warn against feeding bears, and Colorado State University biologist Cassandre Venumiere-Lefebvre and others urge the public to give bears space, report sightings and never feed them ⁶. A fed bear is not helped. It learns to associate people with food, loses wariness, returns more boldly and becomes harder to drive off without relocation or killing, outcomes officials say early reporting can help avoid ⁶⁵.

That risk grows into fall. Hyperphagia intensifies the search for calories, and towns offer dense, predictable calories in trash, fruit trees and pet food that wild landscapes currently do not ⁴⁶¹⁰. Residents who have never seen a bear on their street are being asked to behave as if one will arrive tonight: lock the car, bring in the feeder, freeze the smelly trash, close the garage and call early rather than hoping the animal moves on ⁵⁶.