Drought, trash raise bear reports

With bear incidents on the rise throughout Colorado, the Gunnison Valley is feeling the pressure. Colorado Parks and Wildlife received 5,299 reports of sightings and conflicts with bears in 2025, which is 15% higher than the previous six years. In CPW’s Area 16, encompassing the Gunnison Basin and the North Fork Valley, there were 144 bear reports last year.

Trash remains a major contributor to human-bear sightings and conflicts, according to CPW’s John Livingston. Gunnison County ranked fifth out of Colorado’s 64 counties for bear activity related to garbage in 2025. Despite making it into the top five of counties with bear and trash problems, Gunnison County falls well behind other significant contributors to the issue. Last year, Gunnison County experienced 64 incidents of bears getting into human refuse – as reported directly to CPW – while La Plata County had 405 incidents of the same nature.

About half of all the reports around Gunnison came from garbage concerns, Livingston said. But in spite of this dynamic, Livingston said numerous other factors are at play, specifically in the Gunnison Basin.

Prolonged drought, associated with the dry 2025 summer and big fires west of Gunnison, forces many bears and other wildlife to search more desperately for food sources. 

“Natural food conditions have been pretty poor for bears,” said Livingston.

Household habits that seem innocuous have a role to play as well. Bird feeders in local yards serve as bear attractants, and so do backyard chickens. 

“We’re starting to get more awareness,” Livingston said. “But we also are getting more visitors.”

A newer influence Livingston is noticing concerns delivery of pet food. When pet owners leave these bags on porches and in driveways, they incidentally provide a calorie-dense temptation to bears. 

“It’s just little stuff like that,” he said. “It’s just another attractant in the landscape we have to educate about.”

Livingston advocated bear-resistant trash cans, which he said are a proven method of deterring bears. He also recommended Gunnison residents who encounter bears should feel comfortable reaching out to CPW. 

Sightings alone are good data points for the agency to monitor, and they don’t necessarily lead to an intervention like hazing, relocating or euthanizing the bear. He said CPW hopes to shake the stigma that could be associated with reporting bear activity to CPW staff.

“We’d much rather know the first time than the fifth time,” Livingston said.

The City of Gunnison Operations Manager, Jason Kibler, said the trash issue is something of a thorn in the local government’s side. They’ve sought to address urban bear concerns repeatedly for about the past five years, but so far efforts are spotty and largely ineffective.

In 2020, Kibler said the city rolled out an option bear-resistant trash can agreement where private landowners can purchase cans independently and sign a contract for city collection. In the approximately five years since the city started offering this arrangement, Kibler said a handful of locals have opted in.

But when Gunnison piloted a city-funded bear can program in 2024, funded by a CPW grant and supported by a Western Colorado University student, the results weren’t promising.

Gunnison deployed roughly 100 cans to target areas, mostly on the Western side of town, in June 2024. Through the nationwide provider Wastequip, Gunnison utilized the Toter Automated Bear Cart designed to stay shut until a truck collects the can. 

Throughout that summer, bear can users ran into trouble. Design flaws with the latch meant the lids could freeze or fail to open when they were being dumped. At approximately $300 a can, compared to regular garbage receptacles that currently cost about $60 each, the investment wasn’t paying off.

Gunnison collected all of the Toter cans in the winter of 2024, and Kibler said they’re eyeing other options. But more well-regarded cans like the Kodiak brand cost almost double what the Toter receptacles cost the city, and even with potential CPW grant funding the prospect of significantly reducing trash-induced conflicts feels out of reach. 

“We’ve got to be responsible for our trash,” Kibler said.