Overview
- Colorado Parks and Wildlife has logged roughly 6,129 bear reports between Jan. 1 and Aug. 13, about double the number from the same period last year and on pace for a record year.
- A short run of incidents this week included a man scratched outside an Eagle-Vail apartment laundry room, a woman struck after a bear entered a Steamboat Springs home, and a homeless man bitten in Aspen; officers set traps and located an adult female bear that was euthanized.
- In central Colorado Springs a 250–300 pound black bear climbed into an unlocked vehicle, became trapped, severely damaged the interior and was found dead after days in the heat.
- CPW has deployed neighborhood traps, is conducting necropsies and DNA analysis on bears linked to attacks, and is publicly urging people to lock cars, remove food and secure trash while pointing to new fines for knowingly leaving attractants.
- Wildlife officials say drought, low snowpack, wildfire impacts and bears' late-summer hyperphagia have reduced natural foods, which increases risky foraging in neighborhoods and raises the odds that habituated bears will be removed or killed.