Why Bear Attacks in Colorado Are Surging This Year
Three separate bear attacks in Colorado on three consecutive days this week are the latest in an alarming rise of human encounters with the wild animals across multiple Western states, officials said.Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) officials said bear reports so far this year have nearly doubled from this time last year, including instances of bears breaking into homes, vehicles and even a hotel in search of food."There is going to be an abnormal amount of bear activity around humans this fall that people need to be aware of," Joey Livingston, a spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told ABC News.In this screen grab from a video, a Cortlandt Koerwitz sprays bear spray at a charging bear outside his Lake Tahoe, Calif., vacation home, July 4, 2026.Cortlandt Koerwitz/InstagramPreliminary data collected by the agency shows a record-high number of bear incidents. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 13 of this year, there were 6,129 bear-related reports, a nearly 97% increase from 2025, according to the agency.A bear roaming the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles triggered multiple school lockdowns, May 4, 2026.KABCCPW has also seen a 56% spike in incidents involving property damage caused by bears foraging for food.But the jump in bear sightings and attacks is not just exclusive to Colorado.An increase in bear conflicts has also been reported this year in California, New Mexico, Oregon and Montana, according to authorities.Some of the incidents have turned violentThe latest bear attack in Colorado occurred early Wednesday when a homeless man sleeping in Aspen's Rio Grande Park awoke to find a bear biting his head, according to CPW officials. The man, who was able to escape and call for help, was treated at a hospital for head and facial injuries, while officials tracked down the adult female bear and euthanized it, officials said.The attack came a day after a woman was injured in a bear attack in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. CPW officials said the bear entered the victim's home around 1 a.m. after breaking through a sliding glass door. The victim said the bear struck her in the face when she tried to chase the animal away, officials said.A bear roaming the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles triggered multiple school lockdowns, May 4, 2026.KABCOn Monday, a man in Eagle-Vail, Colorado, was attacked by a female black bear he encountered in the laundry room of his apartment complex, CPW officials said. The bear scratched the man in the arm, causing him to trip and injure himself, officials said.CPW said that before Monday's attacks, it had received multiple reports of sow and cubs foraging in dumpsters in the Eagle-Vail neighborhood.In yet another incident this week, a bear entered a home in Mt. Crested Butte, Colorado, and unintentionally started a kitchen fire, according to the Mt. Crested Butte Fire Department. No injuries were reported in the incident.On Aug. 10, police were called to the Grand Timber Lodge in Breckenridge, Colorado, after a bear entered the lobby, broke into a snack room and stole a bag of M&M's, according to the Breckenridge Police Department, which released body-camera video of an officer confronting the bear.ScreenshotA momma bear and two cubs are spotted roaming near homes in Crested Butte, Colorado, August 18, 2025. (Crested Butte Fire Protection District) Earlier this month, a man in Cedar Crest, New Mexico, was injured when a bear attacked and bit him while he was out walking his dog, according to the New Mexico Department of Wildlife.Cortlandt Koerwitz told ABC News that he had a dangerously close encounter with a bear over the Fourth of July holiday outside his family's vacation home in Lake Tahoe, Calif. Koerwitz said he encountered the bear after his daughters, who were in the garage packing coolers for a boating trip, saw the animal rummaging through the family's garbage.Video captured the bear charging toward Koerwitz, who fended it off with bear spray.Popular Reads"The girls said that the bear, instead of running away like normal, the bear kind of came towards them," Koerwitz told ABC News shortly after the incident. "It was rushing me. The bear spray worked, you know, and it worked on me too. It definitely worked."In nearby South Lake Tahoe, police said on Tuesday that there has been an 80% increase in bear-related calls this year -- from 97 this time last year to 174 so far this year.What's causing the increase in bear attacks and encounters?Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials estimate that there are 17,000 to 20,000 bears in the state, and every year the majority of incidents they respond to involve bears looking for human food.But this year, a severe drought in Colorado and across several Western states has made scarce the natural foods bears enjoy."There’s not a lot a natural food out there for the bears. When there’s less natural food for the bears, they have to move," Livingston of the CPW told ABC News. "They’re way more likely to search out those food sources in years where there’s not enough natural food, which is exactly what we are seeing this year."STOCK PHOTO/Getty ImagesIn a recent video statement, Nick Forman, the carnivore and small mammal program manager for the New Mexico Department of Wildlife, said New Mexico is seeing its highest number of human-bear conflicts since 2013 and 2014."Obviously, that has to do with the drought condition. We've had historically low snowpack combined with these high temperatures and not a lot of precipitation," Forman said. "So that meant this year [when] bears came out of the den, there was really no green grass for these bears to start eating in the spring, and that just put us at a deficit."Making matters worse have been a series of historic wildfires across the Western states, including Colorado and Oregon, that have burned millions of acres of wildland, driving bears from their natural habitat, officials said.In Montana, which is also experiencing a severe drought, state Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) officials said there has been a significant drop in the amount of wild berries that bears normally dine on this time of year."This year is panning out to be one of the worst natural food failure years on record," Jamie Jonkel, a bear conflict specialist for the Montana FWP, said in a statement.Jonkel said the lack of natural food in the wild is prompting bears to venture into populated areas to forage for food."Uncontained garbage is by far our biggest issue," Jonkel said.Wildlife officials across the West have launched campaigns to encourage residents to bear-proof their garbage containers, clean their outdoor barbecue grills and remove bird feeders and pet food from outdoor areas when bears are active.Some states like Colorado have taken drastic measures to curb bear-human encounters. Earlier this year, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation allowing authorities to fine people up to $5,000 after they have already received a warning about "knowingly" leaving out food or garbage that attracts bears."Reducing human-animal conflicts starts by doing our part to properly store our trash and lock away food waste so we can safely share our communities with our furry friends coming out of hibernation," Polis said in a statement. "This new law takes another step to protecting bears and humans alike."ABC News' Jeffrey Cook and Melissa Adan contributed to this report.
