Colorado’s black bears are waking up from hibernation and looking for food.  

After 2024 saw record-high reports of bear sightings and conflict with humans, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has reportedly already received 82 reports of bear activity in 17 counties this year. 

This number is only expected to rise as more and more bears emerge from their dens this spring. Colorado has an estimated population of 20,000 black bears. 

Parks and Wildlife reports that male bears are typically the first to emerge, followed by females that did not have cubs over the winter. In late April, the new mothers and cubs will be the last to emerge.

Mark Vieira, manager of the agency’s carnivore and furbearer program, called this first phase of spring “walking hibernation” for the bears. 

During this period, the bears move slowly and eat “almost exclusively vegetative material that starts to pass through their system to get their bodies ready for early summer food sources,” he said in a news release. 

“Their bodies need to adjust to the fact that they haven’t consumed anything for up to five or six months,” Vieira added.

Starting in early summer, bears will start to transition to their typical omnivorous diet. 

The agency reports that 90% of a bear’s natural diet is grasses, berries, fruits, nuts and plants or native crops that are dependent on moisture. As such, high conflict years typically coincide with years where bears’ natural food sources are impacted by late frosts or long, dry weather that cause these natural foods to fail and bears to look to human sources. 

Last year, the agency received over 5,000 reports of bear sightings and conflicts, the vast majority of which took place in Pitkin County, Eagle County, and the western portion of Garfield County, including Glenwood Springs. Across the northwest, a cold and wet spring brought food failure to parts of the region, including a lack of natural food sources like choke cherries or berries.

More than half of the bear reports statewide in 2024 were linked to trash, 21% to livestock, chickens and beehives, and 18% to bird seed, pet food, barbeque grills, coolers and refrigerators. 

As the bears continue to wake up this spring, Parks and Wildlife is asking Coloradans to begin implementing precautions to avoid attracting bears. This includes securing or using wildlife-resistant trash containers, not hanging bird feeders, taking precautions when camping, protecting chicken, bees and livestock and more.  

Once a bear is habituated to a human food source, it is likely to return and depend on that food throughout the summer. Bears that become habituated are often hazed, relocated or euthanized depending on their behavior.