Colorado Parks and Wildlife managers report having killed a total of 112 black bears this calendar year.

In December, most bears are hibernating, so the numbers probably will not go up substantially. But many bears are still active, due to a lack of food in the mountains; they are still trying to bulk up, otherwise they know instinctively that they may die in their sleep.

As we take a look back at the year 2022 for bears, one of the most remarkable incidents occurred toward the end of summer in Aspen.

In this case, a sow and at least one of her four cubs had entered a home in a subdivision that includes a 36-acre meadow, a pond and ski trails. According to the homeowner who was interviewed by the Aspen Times, the bears squeezed through a slightly opened window on the ground floor. The bears never had contact with any humans in the home.

According to a CPW report, the bears were put down after determining “that the behavior of the adult bear and cubs posed an immediate threat to human safety.”

As the founder of the statewide Colorado Bear Coalition, a citizen-led group whose mission is to protect bears while keeping humans safe, this story is particularly alarming; it’s heartbreaking when one bear is killed, but unusual for an entire family to be destroyed. As the news cycle on this August incident has moved on, I would hope we will not forget this story as it represents how we are all failing to protect one of our most valuable predators of the forests.

And this is not a Colorado-specific problem, as communities across the West are facing similar situations and difficulties managing both people and bears, with the ultimate goal of nonlethal measures.

Colorado has a two-strikes-out guideline, which means a bear will be tagged and relocated if the bear is considered by CPW policy to display nuisance or problem behavior; the bear is killed if the bear continues to display problem behavior. While there was some confusion in the Aspen case, as to whether the window was open or closed, locked or unlocked, policy dictates that the manner in which the bear enters, as well as previous handling and tagging, does not influence the agency’s decision to euthanize a bear that has entered a home occupied by residents.

While it is appropriate to make efforts to understand current bear management policy to see if there is room for improvements, especially when a bear is killed, I find that pointing fingers and blaming the homeowner or wildlife managers on the ground is not productive for anyone, including the bears. What is helpful is for the community to come together as a whole and figure out how to prevent this cycle of conflict which is often followed by bear deaths.

I was fortunate to have recently attended the International Human Bear Conflict Workshop, which brings together field biologists, wildlife managers and community organizers from across the globe to discuss a better path forward than using lethal measures as the main tool used to manage bears.

Several attendees and organizers who have been attending for years noted a shift in how language was being used and in more diverse thinking. For instance, some speakers this year focused on the need to help all parties to see bears as they truly are — not as scary and dangerous predators who want to hurt humans, but as shy animals who prefer to avoid us altogether.

One good solution that came up was to stop using deprecating labels and definitions — such as problem bears, nuisance bears and bear problems — which allow people to believe that whatever situation they are dealing with is entirely the bear’s fault and therefore not their responsibility to solve. Because what we are really dealing with is a human behavior problem and not a bear problem.

It’s natural behavior that drives bears to follow their nose toward the problem we continue to create, which includes leaving unsecured trash where we live or recreate within bear habitat. And bears will stick around where there is opportunity. We are creating this problem for bears, and it is further disheartening when you consider that many bears die from being hit by vehicles as they try to return to the location where they were first trapped and relocated from.

Meanwhile, climate change is making natural food scarce for bears, human growth is increasing, while bear habitat is shrinking. As people fear bears and fail to bear-proof their homes and communities, the result is an increase in reported human-bear conflicts across the nation, followed by more bear deaths. Over the past seven years, our state agency has killed on average 110 bears each year (nearly a thousand bears) in response to bears displaying problem or nuisance behavior.

I am confident we can do better, but we have to work together. It helps if residents take time to learn about bear behavior, as well as wildlife management policies in their state. And to take action, whether that means personal responsibility, or working with leaders to support statewide programs that promote nonlethal methods for coexistence.

When potential or perceived conflict arises, what happens next does not have to be textbook. One wildlife manager in Canada explained that he relocates polar bears from undesirable locations by trapping the bear, driving it dozens of miles further along its movement corridor and releasing it, all without using any tranquilizer. Which is astounding.

In the end, protecting bears and human safety is about human responsibility that falls on all of us to work together — residents, community leaders, city and county officials, and wildlife managers — because I truly believe we all want the same thing: to know that our bears are free to be bears.

Brenda Lee is the founder of the Colorado Bear Coalition, a nonprofit bringing communities together with political leaders and wildlife policymakers to reduce human-bear conflicts and to preserve the welfare of both bears and people. She writes this piece also as a member of Animal Wellness Action’s Colorado council predator protection committee.