Salida Gunshop Podcast // Clip // Wildlife Biology // Amendment 83

How a "Loving Heart" Gets a Colorado Bear Put Down: What Science Says About Drought Bears

When drought wipes out wild berries and acorns, leaving food out for a hungry bear feels compassionate until wildlife officers are forced to put that bear down.

Watch the 41-second Short // Watch full episode context at 33:12

When a severe drought hits Colorado and natural forage dries up in the high country, black bears wander into mountain towns searching for calories. If you love animals, your first impulse when you see a thin, hungry bear might be to leave food out on the porch to help it survive the season. In this 41-second clip from the Salida Gunshop Podcast, Salida clinical herbalist and hunter Katie Surber explains why her father, retired 35-year Colorado Parks and Wildlife Area Wildlife Manager Jim Aragon, warned that feeding a bear is the fastest way to get it killed.

What Katie says

“I meet people who feel like they should feed a bear because it’s going through the drought. I grew up with a game warden who said, ‘That’s how you get a problem bear who’s desensitized to humans and who has to be put down.’ This is somebody’s feelings and not a firm understanding of the facts of wildlife behavior, of environment, of how human and wildlife interact. That’s a really solid example of how somebody with the best intentions, the most loving heart, can wind up getting a bear killed. Or a person.”

Katie Surber SHORT FULL VIDEO 33:18

Katie follows that story with the question that frames the entire episode: “If you’re pro-science and anti-hunting, that one’s a hard one for me to align mentally because there’s a lot of science saying that hunting is a valid way of managing wildlife” VIDEO 0:30.

CPW’s 2026 warning: the worst bear food failure on record

Katie’s warning matches what state biologists are seeing across Colorado right now. Every fall from mid-August through November, black bears enter hyperphagia, foraging up to 20 hours a day and consuming up to 20,000 calories daily to build fat reserves for winter hibernation CPW KKTV.

In October 2026, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials called 2026 “the worst food failure year that we’ve ever had” KKTV. According to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University, Colorado just finished its warmest water year on record since 1895, with statewide snowpack peaking at a record-low 51% of average KUNC. Combined with late spring freezes and summer drought, the wild berries, chokecherries, and gamble oak acorns bears rely on failed across much of the state.

That natural food failure has driven unprecedented bear activity into neighborhoods. CPW warns that a bear receiving even a single human food reward loses its natural caution and keeps returning to porches, garages, and kitchens KKTV. Once a habituated bear begins breaking into homes or vehicles, wildlife officers often have no safe option left except euthanasia. Last year alone, 13 bears had to be euthanized in southeastern Colorado following hundreds of conflict reports KKTV. To keep bears wild and alive, CPW urges residents to lock up trash, take down bird feeders, bring in pet food, clean grills, and use bear spray or air horns to haze bears away from homes.

Why wildlife biology belongs with scientists on Amendment 83

The exact same principle applies to how Colorado manages its wildlife populations at the ballot box. When voters overrule field biologists out of emotion, or when bear and elk numbers outgrow what drought-stressed habitat can support, animals either starve in winter or end up euthanized as nuisance statistics instead of feeding local families VIDEO 32:29. See how Colorado elk outfitter Jenny Burbey puts that choice in Bear in the Freezer, Not a Statistic.

Amendment 83, on Colorado’s Nov. 3 ballot, protects the constitutional right to hunt and fish and establishes hunting and fishing as the preferred means of managing wildlife populations, while keeping full regulatory authority with Colorado Parks and Wildlife for science and public safety BLUE BOOK. Watch our full conversation with Katie in If You’re Pro-Science and Anti-Hunting: Salida Herbalist Katie Surber on Amendment 83, Food & Hormones, and read the ballot text in our Amendment 83 explainer.

How to vote

• Amendment 83 requires 55% of the vote to pass BLUE BOOK.
• Mail ballots must be received by 7:00 PM MT on Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026.
• Locate your nearest official ballot drop box or voter center at GoVoteColorado.gov.

Quotes are from the episode; timestamps link to the Short and the full conversation. Bear safety guidance and 2026 food failure reports from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and KKTV; 2026 water year climate data from the Colorado Climate Center via KUNC. Transparency note: Katie Surber owns Copper Kettle Apothecary, a neighbor in the same building as Salida Gunshop on West First Street in Salida.