Autumn light on a timber-and-stone home's enclosed entry, sandstone steps, and yellow-leaved aspen.

Why Ouray's Bears Aren't Done for the Year, Even With Furnaces Kicking On

"It feels like it's getting cold. People's furnaces are kicking on, but that doesn't mean bears are going for their dens yet." Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman John Livingston said that to the Cortez Journal on September 30, and it describes the next several weeks in Ouray.

A week before that interview, on the morning of September 23, people walking past Full Tilt at 515 Main St. filmed a large bear standing upright inside the restaurant. It was looking out the front window next to a Pac-Man arcade machine. Ouray County Sheriff's Office deputies opened the door before CPW officers arrived, and the bear walked out and moved on. It left a large pile of droppings on the wooden floor.

That bear was lucky. Others in Ouray County this year were not. The bears that ended up dead came into town through open doors, backyard coops and food that people put out on purpose. Bears don't den when the first snow falls. They den when the food runs out, and the town itself is now one of the last food sources around.

Counting against last year

The Ouray County Plaindealer reported that as of the week before September 30, officials had received 126 reports of bear problems in Ouray County. At the same point in 2025, the count was 24.

Measure	2026	Same period, 2025
Ouray County bear reports, through late September	126	24
Colorado bear reports, January through August	6,129	3,115
Colorado bear reports, as of late September	10,820	Not reported

The statewide numbers come from a CPW report cited by the Cortez Journal and from the Plaindealer's late-September count.

Ouray County's count is more than five times last year's. Statewide reports roughly doubled over the first eight months. Then reports kept coming in fast: the Plaindealer noted an increase of more than 800 statewide reports in a single week. In a September 8 statement, CPW called 2026 Colorado's highest year for human-bear conflict so far, with more than 7,000 reports by then. CPW also said reports usually peak from August through October, which means the peak season isn't over yet.

CPW District Manager Kelly Crane told the Plaindealer in August that this is the worst bear year in at least the past five years.

Why the hillsides came up short

The reason starts in the backcountry, above town. CPW blames a widespread food shortage on historically low snowpack, drought, late spring freezes, a dry summer, wildfires and hail. The agency said natural food conditions this year may be the worst statewide since it began recording them in 2008. Livingston told the Cortez Journal that the shortfall hit the plants bears normally rely on, including chokecherries, acorns, grasses and serviceberries. He said bad bear years usually stay regional, but this time the food failure spread well beyond one small area.

That shortage collides with a fixed biological deadline. In late summer and fall, bears enter hyperphagia, a stretch of almost nonstop eating when CPW says they gain roughly three to four pounds a day before denning. Livingston put the target at about 20,000 calories a day. In a normal September, bears are active 20 to 22 hours a day. Crane said hyperphagia also keeps bears awake for more of the daytime while they search for high-calorie food.

CPW estimates Colorado's black bear population at 17,000 to 20,000 animals in 2026. When the hillsides can't supply 20,000 calories a day, bears move to the places that can. "Bears are pretty much everywhere and moving extensively right now, looking for food," Crane said. "It doesn't matter if you're in the city of Ouray, in the town of Ridgway, or in the county."

What actually brought bears inside this summer

The Plaindealer's reporting on Ouray County incidents this year shows a pattern. Unsecured trash wasn't the main problem. Most incidents began with food put out on purpose, a coop or an open door.

Ouray, early August. Crane cited deliberate bear feeding at a vacation rental, where food was put out in an empty lot and a bear was photographed eating it. A bear later broke into a home in Ouray and broke a car window looking for food. Wildlife officials killed it.
Ridgway, the following week. A young female bear killed chickens at a home. The bear was hit with a baseball bat and pepper-sprayed. Crane set a trap but caught a different bear, which she released in the mountains.
Ridgway Farmers' Market, a Friday in mid-August. The same young bear was seen napping in the cottonwoods during the market.
Ridgway, the next day. Backyard chickens drew the bear back. It climbed a tree, came down and headed for the coop. The bear went in through an open front door. Officers tranquilized it, removed it and killed it, because it had entered a home and had shown no fear of people.
Full Tilt, 515 Main St., Ouray, September 23. The bear was found inside the restaurant that morning and left once deputies opened the door.

That made two bears killed in Ouray County within a week in August. The Plaindealer explained the standard behind those calls: bears that break into homes or show aggression and threaten human safety are killed.

Crane singled out chickens as the attractant behind Ouray County's most recent problems. "They will come in and they certainly can prey on free-range chickens during the day," she said. "And then at night, they can basically just tear doors off coops."

Cold weather doesn't signal the end. Food does.

CPW says the trigger for denning is food availability, not the first snowfall. That's why Livingston's furnace comparison matters this fall. A bear still short on calories will keep looking as long as it finds food. Each trash can, birdseed pile or coop it gets into gives it another reason to stay out.

No source we reviewed gives a denning calendar specific to the San Juans. The closest benchmark comes from Montezuma County. There, Livingston said on September 30 that residents may see bears for about another month, and that the last local bear report in 2025 came on November 24. He also said reports had tapered slightly from their July and August peak. He described the other side of that, too: "We can certainly encourage them to find those dens if they're not getting food in town."

The rules already on the books

Neither town wrote new trash rules for this year. The rules already exist. The 2026 material from both towns consists of reminders.

	City of Ouray	Town of Ridgway
Container standard	Sturdy, enclosed plastic cans with secure latching lids that keep wildlife out or significantly slow them down	Animal-resistant containers required on all properties since the Town Council vote on May 9, 2018
Storage and set-out	Cans stay latched or inside a building. They go out only on collection morning, no earlier than 6 a.m., at the alley edge where there is one	Collection on Tuesday north of Highway 62 and at Vista Terrace, Friday south of Highway 62
Commercial dumpsters	Enclosed, wildlife-resistant, latched except when being filled or emptied, never overfilled	Not covered in the town pages we reviewed
Penalties	Written warning first, then $300 plus court costs, then up to $1,000 or 90 days in jail plus costs for repeat violations	Not listed on the town pages we reviewed

Sources for the Ouray column are the city code's refuse and wildlife provisions. Sources for the Ridgway column are the town's container ordinance page and its refuse collection page.

Ouray's code also bans feeding wildlife and leaving food or trash out on purpose in a way that attracts animals. Bird feeders are allowed only if wildlife mammals can't reach them and the spilled seed underneath is kept cleaned up. At the state level, CPW says the Statewide Bear Working Group bill passed and was signed this spring, raising the penalties for knowingly luring bears with food or other attractants.

In Ridgway, residential trash, recycling and compost service is operated by Bruin Waste Management and billed by the town. Bruin lists both Ouray and Ridgway as service areas and offers bear-resistant upgrades for residential carts. Ouray's code lets the city provide trash service through its own staff or contractors and doesn't bar other commercial haulers. If you're an Ouray homeowner, ask your hauler what it offers.

The guidance that matters most this year goes past the trash can:

Doors, windows and garages. Ridgway's August 13 notice asks residents to secure garages, doors, windows and vehicles. In Ridgway, a bear came in through an open front door.
Vehicles. The City of Ouray's Bear Smart page says to remove food and scented items from cars. A bear in Ouray broke a car window looking for food.
Coops. Crane recommends a multi-strand electric fence installed so a bear can't avoid touching it. Bait the wire with a marshmallow or partly cooked bacon. "What we want is for that bear to bite into that wire and get a really good zap," she said.
Pet food, bird feeders and grills. Ridgway's 2026 notices list all three, along with trash, recycling and compost, as things to keep away from bears.
When to call 911. Ridgway tells residents to call 911 if a bear is in a trash can, close to a house, near children or threatening pets or other domestic animals.

For anything else, CPW keeps its conflict-prevention guidance at cpw.state.co.us.

If you own a home in Ouray and spend part of the fall somewhere else, the weeks before the bears den are when a forgotten bag of birdseed in the garage or a latch nobody checked becomes a problem. JW Group can connect you with trusted local help to check on the house, latch the cans and look over the coop while you're away.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.