Drought Drives Bears Into Rockies Cities; Hundreds Killed

"Bears aren't necessarily behaving any differently but they are definitely increasing their activity in the places that they're looking for food," said Travis Sauder, a state wildlife officer in southeastern Colorado.

Sauder said bears have turned up on Colorado's plains more than an hour's drive east of Colorado Springs, far from their usual mountain and foothill range. "When they get that far east, there's just zero natural food sources that they would be looking for, like oaks or chokecherries," he said.

"A fed bear is a dead bear," is the mantra wildlife officials repeat as they push residents to lock up anything edible.

Samantha Miller, senior carnivore campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the science is still catching up: "Human-animal conflicts in the context of climate change haven't really been fully researched yet. And we're still starting to kind of tease out what this means for us and what this means for all the species that we share the ecosystem with."

Sullivan, whose SUV did not survive the encounter, was blunt about the damage — "It's totaled. It's unfit to drive" — but glad the animal got out. "It was just sitting there waiting for someone to help him, basically," he said.