It is a tough year for bears. Without your help, it is going to be an incredibly difficult few months ahead.
By help, we don’t mean feeding bears. Providing food, whether it is intentionally or by negligently leaving attractants unsecured, can make a dangerous situation worse.
Yes, bears are very hungry right now. On top of a tough summer, we have begun the time period known as “hyperphagia,” a term for extreme, insatiable hunger. In the world of bear management, it is used to describe the late summer and fall months of near nonstop eating, when bears become more active in an attempt to gain 3 to 4 pounds a day ahead of denning.
It has already been a busy summer, but human-bear conflict is only ramping up. Colorado is experiencing the highest levels of human-bear conflict we have seen, with more than 7,000 reports of incidents — which includes sightings and conflicts — already coming directly to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) offices in 2026. And the time period in which CPW averages the most reports is usually between August and October.
Food failures usually limited to a few areas of the state are much more widespread. Surveys CPW conducts of bear forage conditions in late summer have yet to be fully compiled, but all signs point to this being the worst natural food year for bears statewide since CPW began recording conditions in 2008. That adds to a growing list of unfortunate records this year brought on by the historic low-snowpack of the 2025-2026 winter.
Prolonged and historic drought alone has not caused this year’s unique environment. Late spring freezes in parts of the state meant much of the lower-elevation mast never developed. Bears are typically reliant on hard and soft mast — a term for nuts and seeds or berries and fruits with hard mast considered more critical because it’s a much denser source of calories.
Freezes were followed by a dry summer, major wildfires and even hail. All have played a part.
Food failure years are stressful for both bears and people. But Colorado’s black bears are incredibly resilient. They have survived thousands of years through droughts, floods, harsh winters and warm winters. The population has evolved with periodic food failures and has proven relatively immune to infrequent events.
In 1992, Colorado’s black bear population was estimated between 8,000 and 12,000 independent animals. Fast forward to 2026, and the population is estimated between 17,000 and 20,000.
That growth has happened despite the state’s 20 largest fires on record happening since 2002. It has happened through severe droughts in 2002, 2012, 2018 and 2020. It happened while the state has grown from less than 3.5 million residents in 1992 to more than 6 million now, with the human footprint continually expanding into bear habitat.
During that same period, Colorado has made incredible strides across communities in bear country to introduce bear-resistant trash containers both for commercial and residential use. It has come with increased education on securing trash, removing bird feeders during months bears are active and work to limit access bears have to apiaries, hobby livestock and orchards.
That work has been advanced by the efforts of multiple nongovernment organizations and bear advocates in our communities and $5 million worth of additional funding from CPW in the last five years from the Human-Bear Conflict Reduction Grant. That has awarded more than 80 applicants across the state, putting proven conflict mitigation tools on the ground.
In 2024, CPW convened a Statewide Bear Working Group. In the spring of 2026, legislation developed by the group was successfully introduced, passed and signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis. The legislation stiffened penalties for those found to be knowingly luring bears by leaving food or food attractants on the landscape.
The group is made up of stakeholders that include CPW, nonprofit black bear organizations, trash haulers, code enforcement officers, law enforcement representatives from both counties and cities, and a host of other conservation-minded organizations and representatives across the state. It was convened because we can all unanimously agree on at least one thing: Feeding black bears always does more harm than good, and it is up to humans to resolve the human side of human bear conflict.
Current CPW policy is firmly rooted in the notion to “Keep Wild Bears Wild.” The last four decades have seen significant change in how the general public, hunters and wildlife managers perceive black bears. These changes have succeeded because of a committed effort to elevate the status of black bears. Any action which results in greater habituation of bears and the consequent reduction in wariness of humans, is harmful to both bears and people in the long term and would be a detriment to the progress that has been made.
The consequences of humans providing food to try to alleviate the issue has proven to only exacerbate conflict. The evidence is strong: food-conditioned black bears are dangerous and prone to injure people. The long-term consequences greatly outweigh any potential short-term gains.
Understanding food For bears
Food meant for humans is often impossible for wildlife to digest. It rarely matches the vital balance of nutrients, fats and fibers that bears get from natural forage, which can cause severe digestive distress or long-term malnutrition. Additionally, such food is often packaged in styrofoam and plastic, which are often found in the stomachs of food-conditioned bears after they have died.
It is important to understand that, even in such challenging years, there is still natural food available. As omnivores, bears find natural forage through grasses, insects, and hard and soft mast. Bears will also feed on carcasses, and prey on deer and other small mammals.
In years when mast production isn’t widely abundant, bears will turn more to carrion and insects for protein. It’s not only fawns and small mammals bears can successfully prey on, but video footage from just this month has shown Colorado’s black bears are capable of bringing down elk.
In recent weeks, we have seen bears in the Gunnison area turning over rocks in pursuit of insects and larvae. Bears have been recorded tearing through pine cones from Ponderosa pine trees to get to the nuts inside. Both are high-calorie snacks that align with their natural diet.
Higher elevations have also shown more abundant mast products that were not as impacted and received more monsoonal moisture than lower elevations.
Bears will adapt and seek these food sources if they have incentive to do so. But, when bears gain access to human-provided foods, they lack that motivation and will take advantage of the opportunity to consume more calories while exerting less energy.
The case against diversionary or supplemental feeding
It is hard for people to watch bears struggle and wonder whether they will make it through the upcoming winter if they cannot find enough food. It is also difficult for wildlife managers who spend their careers caring for wildlife and people.
Some well-intentioned people have advocated feeding black bears in areas away from human habitation to keep them out of conflict. But black bears can forage 5-10 miles in a day, and Colorado has few remaining areas of fall bear habitat so isolated that fed bears would not eventually encounter people.
On Sept. 12, 2013, the Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted the Prohibition of Diversionary or Supplemental Feeding of Black Bears policy following a similar drought-induced food shortage. The policy states that black bear populations will be managed on the basis of natural forage availability without recourse to diversionary or supplemental feeding in all circumstances, excluding agency-approved research.
CPW has received questions about why it does not feed bears during periods of natural food shortages, particularly because state law and policy allow supplemental feeding of deer, elk and pronghorn during severe winters. The answer is that black bear ecology and behavior are fundamentally different from those of big-game ungulates. Ungulates are herd animals that can share food sources with relatively little conflict. Black bears are solitary and territorial, with large home ranges. Concentrating hungry bears around piles of food causes overcrowding, sparks potentially deadly territorial fights, puts dependent cubs at risk and could increase issues of disease transmission.
The location of feeding sites creates another problem. Beginning in mid-August, black bears in much of Colorado naturally move to lower elevations where fall foods such as acorn-producing gambel oak, chokecherries, serviceberries and piñon pine are found. Feeding bears at high elevations would not prevent these seasonal movements, which occur even when food is abundant. Feeding at lower elevations, meanwhile, would put food directly into the areas where human-bear conflicts are most common.
Bears already involved in conflicts have likely explored their wilderness habitats that usually provide natural foods and found those foods aren't there. Adding piles of human food sources in higher wilderness areas would, in many cases, not be found by
those bears already at lower elevations. It could also concentrate and change the behavior of wildlife species that are still there, such as coyotes and other omnivores.
If food were placed only at higher elevations, bears in communities would have to be trapped and relocated, creating additional competition among bears. As long as bears can find human-provided food, supplemental feeding would do little to change that behavior.
Black bears require thousands of daily calories, especially during late summer hyperphagia, when they consume roughly 20,000 calories a day. Maintaining feeding sites with enough food to benefit a few bears, let alone a regional or statewide population, logistically is not feasible.
There are also significant human-safety concerns. Feeding sites would require strict control of public access, which would be difficult to enforce. Human presence around food could further habituate bears to people and create liability concerns if someone were injured. Feeding stations could also conflict with bear hunting season. Colorado has outlawed the use of bait for bear hunting. Feeding stations could pose an immediate conflict for hunters, either knowingly or unknowingly, hunting at or near feeding sites.
Finally, supplemental feeding could interfere with bears' natural biological cues. Contrary to the common belief that the first snowfall triggers denning, the availability of natural food is the trigger for when bears enter dens. If human-provided food suddenly disappears, food-conditioned bears may continue searching for easily accessible food in towns, neighborhoods and campsites rather than naturally transitioning into denning.
Feeding black bears during natural food shortages would concentrate bears, increase health and safety risks, alter natural behavior and increase conflicts with people. Feeding may seem empathetic, but it ultimately harms the bears and contradicts the goal of keeping wildlife wild.
The problem of habituation
Black bears have a tremendously acute sense of smell. Bears know concentrated feed sites are not natural and will know that humans bring the food. In times of food stress, bears readily trade wariness for energy. The more times this happens without a negative consequence to the bear, the less a bear will be concerned with the presence or actions of a human.
In normal food years, the wariness of bears keeps most foraging away from habitations. Bears that are less wary will still forage around houses and camps even in good food years.
In food-failure years, a bear’s natural wariness of humans succumbs to its need for large quantities of food. Subsequently, the number of human-bear conflicts escalates dramatically, as does the amount of property damage along with increasing mortality of bears.
Injuries to humans by bears are strongly associated with food-conditioned or habituated bears. CPW policy regarding bear conflicts seeks to eliminate bears’ access to human and livestock foods as the first line of defense. This policy must be consistent in all years. Once a black bear learns of a food source, they rarely forget it. Successful feeding around humans leads to habituation and food-conditioning.
A human-habituated bear will likely cause conflicts with people until it is killed.
Bear management
Black bears have evolved with biological and physiological mechanisms to help them deal with natural food failures. Bears are built for adapting to food shortages by hibernating. Females will often not reproduce the following spring when they are in poor body condition, litter sizes may decrease and younger adult females may not breed at all. A one-year delay may change the timing of a female bear’s litter, but will have little impact on her lifetime productivity.
Short-term consequences of food failures primarily affect cubs and yearlings. Regardless, periodic food failures are not a threat to the long-term presence of bears in Colorado.
If failures occur more frequently in local areas, hunter harvest is closely monitored. CPW is able to adjust bear hunting licenses on an annual basis to maintain population objectives. If the population reaches the low end of objectives, CPW can reduce bear hunting licenses the following year.
How can you help?
There is a reason not feeding bears is at the top of the list of every advice page when it comes to successfully living with bears.
Research has shown that bears, both adults and cubs, that feed on trash suffer higher rates of mortality. The first thing people can do to alleviate human-bear conflict is secure trash. Even those with bear-resistant containers must make sure they work properly, they are not overfilled and the scent emanating from them does not attract bears.
In 2025, CPW became partners with the national BearWise® program. This was another initiative of the Statewide Bear Working Group. BearWise® promotes “Scare The Bear,” advocating for the public to help bears by hazing them away from neighborhoods. In the same time it takes a person to take out a phone to photograph bear activity near homes, they could haze the bear by blowing a whistle, yelling, setting off a car alarm or horn, or banging pots and pans. The same memory a bear has for receiving a food reward close to our homes applies to negative interactions.
It is imperative this year that Colorado residents lock doors and windows on homes and vehicles. Bears are showing they will be more bold in the search for food. Prevent a bear from accessing your home or car by always locking doors and windows. Keeping bears out of homes and communities is the only long-term way to keep bears wild.
To those who care about bears, please don't leave them food or decide just this once you won't lock up the garbage. It won't help bears survive; it will push them down a dead-end street.
Most healthy bears will find a way to survive. But, bears that learn to rely on people for easy meals will remember those lessons long after the drought is over and will teach the behavior to the next generation. Instead of saving lives, this will create chronic problems for people and bears.
Coloradans are smart, and people will do the right thing, even if it's the hard thing.
Signed,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife
CPW Statewide Bear Working Group
Bear Smart Durango
City of Aspen
Colorado Bear Coalition
Keep Bears Wild Steamboat
Keep Routt Wild
Linda Masterson, BearWise® and author of "Living with Bears Handbook"
Roaring Fork Valley Bear Coalition
Wild Aware
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