The 2026 drought has taken a toll on Colorado’s bear cubs.

In the Colorado Mountain Estates community, a pair of cubs found without their mother tugged at residents’ heartstrings and sent Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers on a weekslong effort to rescue them.

Local CPW officer Drew Vrbenec said the conditions this year have been especially difficult for bears.

“With low snowfall over the winter, bears came out of their dens early and hungry,” he said. “When the drought conditions persisted, it became a tough situation for this year’s cubs.”

Insufficient food resources may force mother bears to make harsh choices.

“Though it’s hard to say for sure what happened to the mother, from what we saw, the mother most likely realized her cubs’ chances of survival were low, so she abandoned them,” Vrbenec said. “From a survival standpoint, it makes sense. The mother is already part of the breeding population. By ensuring her own survival, she may have a more successful outcome with her next offspring. But from a human standpoint, it’s hard to see.”

This year, reports of orphaned cubs have been much higher than normal. In the last weeks of July, CPW began receiving calls about two cubs living without their mother in Colorado Mountain Estates. In situations like this, there are proactive steps the public can take to help CPW officers and improve the cubs’ chances of survival.

When reporting an abandoned cub, provide as much information as possible. Note how long the cub has been alone, any signs of injury or illness, its color, body condition and approximate size.

“A bear the size of a Labrador is a young bear, but it’s perfectly normal for a bear that size to be on its own,” Vrbenec said. “The best thing the public can do for a yearling bear is to scare it away with something like a rattle can or bear spray. But a bear the size of a Shih Tzu should be with its mother.”

Although it can be heartbreaking to see a hungry bear cub, do not feed it.

“Once a bear associates humans with food, its chances of rehabilitation plummet,” Vrbenec said. “We want bears to be wary of human interaction.”

If a cub is clearly too young to be on its own and its mother has been absent for several days, CPW recommends chasing the cub into a tree before calling officers. This can make the animal much easier to capture safely.

“Otherwise, it can be a real wild goose chase,” Vrbenec said.

That approach helped CPW capture the first Colorado Mountain Estates cub. Officers asked the homeowner who reported the bear to chase it up a tree. When they arrived, they were able to sedate the cub, climb into the tree with a catch pole and transport the cub to a rehabilitation center in Del Norte.

Two days later, the second cub entered a home and began eating cat food. The homeowner secured the cub inside. When the CPW officer arrived, the animal was so weak and malnourished that the officer was able to catch it by hand.

A bear of that age should have weighed about 20 pounds. This cub weighed less than 10 pounds and was already showing signs of organ failure. It was beyond rehabilitation and had to be humanely euthanized.

“Our goal is to ensure the survival of wildlife,” Vrbenec said. “So cases like that are tough.”

Fortunately, the first cub was transported to the Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where it will be given a chance to recover and eventually return to the wild.

At the rehabilitation center, orphaned cubs are kept in a large enclosure and offered natural foods with very little human contact. The goal is to help them reach a healthy weight so they can be released in time to hibernate in the wild.

Bears that are captured as cubs and later released are fitted with white ear tags. If they have future encounters with CPW, the tags allow officers to identify them as animals that were previously captured and rehabilitated as cubs.

“Generally, the ultimate outcomes for rehabilitated cubs are unknown,” Vrbenec said. “When returned to the wild, unless they cause trouble for themselves by returning to populated areas after being released, we don’t have any great data on their outcomes.”