Colorado recorded 6,129 bear sightings and conflicts through Aug. 13. That figure nearly doubled the 3,115 reports from the same period in 2025, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said.
The total has already topped the 5,299 reports logged during all of 2025. The agency said 2026 could become the busiest year since it began digitally tracking human-bear interactions in 2019.
Officials linked the surge partly to drought, which has reduced natural food supplies. Bears also enter hyperphagia, searching heavily for food before winter.
“This summer in particular, we ask people to be mindful that wildlife are having to work harder to find food and water,” habitat conservation supervisor Casey Cooley said.
Several encounters occurred across Colorado in mid-August. In Aspen, a bear bit a man on the head as he slept in Rio Grande Park on Aug. 19, officials said.
Paramedics took him to the hospital with head and facial injuries. He later went home. Wildlife officers found and euthanised the bear under agency policy.
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In Steamboat Springs, a bear entered a home on Aug. 18 and damaged a sliding glass door. The animal struck a woman in the face when she tried to chase it outside. She drove herself to the hospital, received treatment for cuts and later left.
That same day, officers tranquillized a young black bear roaming Colorado State University in Fort Collins. About 6,000 students were moving into dormitories at the time. Officials relocated the animal, and no conflict occurred.
In Colorado Springs, officials found a roughly 300-pound black bear dead inside an unlocked vehicle on Aug. 17. The animal entered while searching.
Food and became trapped, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said. Officials believe summer heat contributed to its death.
