State wildlife officials killed a young, female bear that entered a Ridgway home last weekend after days of conflicts and at least one incident with the bear killing chickens.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Manager Kelly Crane warned bear activity has ramped up significantly, with the bruins seeking food anywhere they can find it. In Ouray County, chicken coops have proven to be a strong attractant for the bears, who are hungry and seeking food during the drought and after being displaced by fires.

Bear conflicts are on the rise and 2026 is on track to have the highest number of bear conflict reports since the state started its reporting system in 2019. As of Aug. 13, the state has received more than double the number of reports compared to the same time period last year, according to CPW.

Crane said she received a dozen calls about bear con- flicts in her district alone on Monday morning.

The bear killed at the home on Clinton Street on Saturday was the same one people spotted napping in cottonwood trees during the Ridgway Farmers’ Market on Friday, according to Crane.

The same young bear had also killed chickens at a home on Lena Street last week, Crane said. The resident was able to get close enough to the bear to hit it with a baseball bat, and the bear was also pepper sprayed, she said.

Crane set a trap to catch the young bear but ended up catching a different bear, so she let that one go in the mountains.

The young bear returned to homes in town on Saturday, attracted by backyard chickens in the 900 block of Clinton Street.

The bear had climbed up a tree at that home, but it came down and was headed for the chicken coop, according to Crane.

The residents of the home came outside and went around the home to try to deter the bear and scare it away, but Crane said the bear ended up getting into their home through a door they left open.

“Somehow as they went around the house they missed the bear and the bear entered the house through the open front door,” she said.

Wildlife officials had to tranquilize the bear to remove it from the house before it was killed.

Because the bear had entered the home and had the previous incidents, Crane said they considered the bear dangerous and had no choice but to kill it.

This was the second bear wildlife officials killed in Ouray County in a week, after another bear broke into a home on North Oak Street in Ouray. That happened after Crane cited guests at a vacation rental for intentionally feeding the bears. A homeowner reported seeing the guests putting food out in an empty lot and seeing the tourists taking photos of the bear eating from inside the home.

A new state law that went into effect this month allows wildlife officials to cite those who knowingly feed bears on a first offense, instead of the previous requirement for a warning.

Crane said bear activity across the Western Slope and in the mountains has increased as the animals seek food and prepare to enter hyperphagia, the period of time where bruins try to eat as much as possible before hibernation.

That phase means bears are awake during the day and spending all their time seeking calorie-rich food.

She said this is the worst bear year in the past five years, in her experience.

While bear-human activity is often tied to unsecured trash or food sources like birdseed or pet food, the most recent challenges in Ouray County are tied to chickens.

“They will come in and they certainly can prey on free-range chickens during the day,” Crane said. “And then at night, they can basically just tear doors off coops.”

In some cases, bears can fit through the coop doors and kill chickens inside their coops at night.

Crane advised anyone with backyard poultry to protect their flocks with multi-strand electric fences. The fence needs to be installed so the bear cannot avoid touching it, Crane said. She also recommends baiting the wire with a marshmallow or partially-cooked bacon wrapped around the wire.

“What we want is for that bear to bite into that wire and get a really good zap,” she said.

Bears are smart and they learn quickly, so the goal is to create a negative experience to deter them from coming back.

Crane recommends that anyone who lives in the area secure any possible food sources to avoid creating an opportunity for bears to become more habituated to humans.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in the city of Ouray, in the town of Ridgway, or in the county,” she said. “Bears are pretty much everywhere and moving extensively right now, looking for food.”

“It’s a really hard year for bears,” Crane said.