EAGLE COUNTY — A mild winter and a hot spring and summer have prompted more bears than usual to come cruisng into town looking for food, wildlife officials say.

There have been more bear sightings than usual along the valley floor this season and at least one campground has been closed to tents and soft-sided trailers, according to a story in the Vail Daily.

Wildlife officials have euthanized several bears this summer.

Vail police say officers have received 53 bear reports in the first half of August, up from 9 reports in 2011.

“This year’s shaping up to be like 2002,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife Area Manager Perry Will said. That year, another severe drought brought an unusual number of bears into neighborhoods.

Learn about living, hiking and camping in bear country at the Parks and Wildlife website.

While there have been many bear sightings, even in Gypsum, there have been no reports of human-bear encounters, wildlife officers say.

The Yeoman Park campground southeast of Eagle has been closed to “soft-sided” shelters including tents and canvas-walled pop-up campers. Will said there’s evidence people have been feeding a bear near Sylvan Lake, since the animal will just walk up to people.

Will said he’ll close down a campground if necessary to reduce bear-human conflicts.

Yeoman Park “is 20 miles out of town,” Will said. “Where do you want the bears to go?”

Will said most people are willing to help bears by doing their best to limit conflicts.

“But you have to have 100 percent compliance in a neighborhood. If you have one house out of 10 that isn’t doing it, you’ll have conflicts.”