08/21/2026
There is a lot of great information shared by Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation that addresses many questions we get asked about all of the bear encounters we are facing here in NM. Although their center had 15 orphaned cubs at the time of this post and we have 8, much of what was written apply to us as a small bear/wildlife rehabilitation center and Colorado also faces many similar challenges to what we do in New Mexico. I encourage everyone to read their post.
Come out to Bear Festival at the Los Alamos Nature Center on Aug 29 from 10-2. For more conversations on this and living with bears and other wildlife.
Why can't we just relocate and/or feed the bears up in the mountains? These are valid questions when facing the struggling bears that are visiting towns. With this post, we hope to clear up some questions with regards to options for struggling bears.
We, as a small non-profit wildlife rehab center, do not have the legal ability to do anything with the bears that are visiting towns and struggling. We can only offer rehabilitation to cubs who are brought to us by CPW, we are not able to rescue the bears ourselves. We already have 15 orphaned cubs in our care this year, with more coming nearly every day.
A note about the drought: Humans don't often have the ability to truly influence nature, and this drought is beyond our control. What we can control is how we deal with the bears in small ways. Many of these bears in town, if they did not encounter a food source, would come down for water and then return to the mountains. They may struggle up there, but would likely find some food to get by. Instead, they find an easy food source around humans and become habituated. A not small percentage of those habituated bears will be hit by cars or escalate and start breaking into houses and be killed. There have already been several unfortunate bears killed on I70 and shot by neighbors in between Canyon Creek and Rifle because being around humans is dangerous for wildlife.
Why can't we feed the bears up in the mountains like CPW does with elk and deer during hard winters? This may seem like a perfect solution at first glance, it just doesn't work the same as with deer and elk.
Deer and elk are herd animals, so you can bring food into one location and they will share with minimal stress and conflict.
They are already naturally concentrated together, so feeding them in one location doesn't really change their behavior or disease transmission.
Also, the hay they are fed doesn't spoil and become dangerous if they don't eat it immediately. It also isn't human food that they will find around houses later.
On the other hand, feeding bears in the mountains would be incredibly complicated.
This has actually been attempted by other groups and at other locations in the past, but because bears are not community animals, a concentrated food source caused them to fight (burning more calories than they gained from the food) and injure each other.
The foods that could be provided to bears will also spoil easily and become toxic and dangerous if eaten after.
Concentrating bears at a feeding source can increase disease transmission, as they are not usually found in large groups and they defecate profusely everywhere they go.
Additionally, for feeding in the mountains to help the bears that have come down into town, those bears would have to be trapped and relocated - more on that below.
Why don't we relocate all these bears back up into the mountains? This solution, too, seems simple at first. But it is much more nuanced than many realize.
Tranquilization can be unsafe and is avoided wherever possible. Drug reactions, difficulty accurately estimating weight, and the animal's inability to properly thermoregulate while tranquilized make sedation and tranquilization far from the first option when relocating bears.
Bears that have been radio collared before relocation have been shown to move many miles a day to return to their original location, often not eating and putting themselves in danger on roads and other hazards they wouldn't normally encounter. Mother bears sometimes leave their cubs behind to die because of the stress of being abducted and dumped in unfamiliar territory.
Imagine being abducted and placed in a random forest somewhere. Do you know where food and water are? What about predators? Are you smack in the middle of a dominant male's territory, and he will kill you when he finds you? How many hazards are between you and home? Unfortunately relocation is rarely the happy ending we are looking for.
While we all wish there was a magic solution for the bears in a year like this, sometimes circumstances are out of our control. The real, actionable thing that we can do to help is keep bears from attributing food to humans by keeping trash and other attractants out of their reach so that they stay away from the extra dangers associated with being around humans.
Do you have any questions about the bear issue that we didn't address here? Feel free to comment and we'll do our best to help clear things up!
