Bad news bears.

The red tag in his ear marks him as a first-time offender: a Colorado bear's equivalent to being booked and fingerprinted. He now has a record--convicted for getting into someone's garbage. Fortunately, he's kept his nose clean until winter hibernation. And, hopefully, he dreams of nuts and berries instead of trash cans, because the Colorado Division of Wildlife decided last year that a problem bear can be relocated only once. With a second offense, the bear is destroyed. In just four months last summer, 33 bears were killed under the new policy.

In the past, nuisance bears were moved two or three times in an effort to break their garbage-eating habits. But it didn't work. As Matthew Reid, executive director of The Great Bear Foundation in Montana, explains, "The problem with relocation is that bears are incredible homers. That is, they have a home range and core center of activity, and they'll go to great lengths to get back to what's familiar to them." This homing instinct could lead a bear across 100 miles, putting it in danger of getting into more trouble. Reid sympathizes with the dilemma, saying, "We obviously don't like to see any bear killed, but we understand that there are circumstances where bears are chronically attracted to garbage--they simply follow their noses."

The unusually hot, dry weather last summer didn't help, either. Natural bear foods, such as yampa (in the carrot family), berries and white bark pine nuts were scarce. Left to forage, manly bears dined in suburban backyards in several western states. One even wandered into downtown Boulder, Colorado.

Rather than move or destroy bears, wildlife officials want to remove certain temptations. It doesn't take much to attract a hungry bear--an outside garbage can, dog food left on a porch, even a barbecue grill--so officials have been telling homeowners, tourists and campers not to leave bear bait. Todd Malmsbury, director of public affairs for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, says, "We're going to ask them--even require them to the extent that we can--to clean up, because we don't want to be killing bears. We're the ones out there trying to save them. But if a bear continues to be a problem, we would consider trapping it; we have no choice but to put human safety first."

People do respond to officials' pleas, although they don't have to. "There's no law saying people can't have trash cans outside," Malmsbury says. But people must realize that certain precautions should be taken when living close to wildlife. The Great Bear Foundation thinks wildlife officials need the power of enforcement, "There has to be responsibility on the part of private landowners moving into bear habitat, and there has to be some leverage for conservation officials, either on the county or state level, to control sanitation problems," says Reid.

The problem may only get worse, as bears live ever-closer to garbage feasts. Fast-growing states like Colorado and Washington also have large black bear counts. Between 1970 and 1993, eight mountain counties in Colorado doubled their populations. Summit County, home of the Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts, grew by nearly 450 percent in the same time period. And Douglas County, south of Denver, grew by a whopping 892 percent. Steve Pozzangherra, a wildlife official in Washington, says, "We have a similar situation here. We're probably the first- or second-fastest growing western state, as well as the smallest one."

And there are a growing number of "bear scare" stories. Last summer, two teenage boys in a campground near Trinidad, Colorado were chased from their tent by a pair of bears. Although they weren't seriously hurt, they were treated for puncture wounds and needed stitches. At the same site three years ago, a bear tossed a man into the air like a pillow, causing him serious injuries. And two years ago, in Cotapaxi, Colorado, a bear charged into a trailer and mauled a man to death. While some garbage bears can be dangerous top people, Reid insists, "There is a much greater chance of dying from a bee sting than from a bear attack. Bears rarely eat a human, but when they do, garbage is usually in the backdrop." Trash starts a predation cycle in which bears associate humans with the garbage; if a bear attacks, it is usually because she believes the person will have food.

To combat this risk, some communities are taking action. Snowmass Village in Colorado, for instance, is the first town to require bear-proof garbage containers. Snowmass also prohibits residents from leaving out pet food or bird feeders where bears can get at them. Only 100 miles away, however, in Silverthorne, 42 sightings of up to eight bears happened in one day after local garbage collection switched to curbside pickup--a problem that could have been avoided. By the end of the summer, wildlife officials were talking about statewide legislation establishing uniformity in sanitation procedures.

While no one knows the size of the bear population, two-strike policies like Colorado's aren't believed to affect it. But given the ever-increasing encroachment on habitat and the estimated 3,000 bears lost to poaching annually, more research is needed to be sure. Wildlife managers are educating more people around bear habitat, and studies are currently underway in several states like Washington, Montana and Colorado to determine how many bears there are, where they're concentrated and how they have been fragmented by urban development. It's a vital first step in planning for future bear management. Even so, bears throughout the American West still awaken to the enticing aromas of urban life.

CONTACT: The Colorado Division of Wildlife, 6060 North Broadway, Denver, CO 80216/[phone]; The Great Bear Foundation, P.O. Box 2699, Missoula, MT 59806/[phone].--Robert L Austin