Two adult black bears and two cubs were found dead Wednesday morning along Interstate 25 about five miles south of Santa Fe.
A New Mexico Department of Wildlife conservation officer was dispatched to a site between La Cienega and La Bajada following a report to New Mexico State Police about the dead bears. The bears had suffered fatal injuries after being struck by a vehicle, agency spokesperson Darren Vaughan wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
One of the adult bears was found on an overpass with a creek running beneath it, making it likely they were in the area to take advantage of the water, Vaughn wrote.
He did not provide further details about the deadly vehicle strikes or the location of the bears’ bodies.
The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office received a call about the bears around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday but was not dispatched in response to the bear deaths, according to spokesperson Denise Womack-Avila. State police directed inquiries to the Wildlife Department.
The bears’ deaths come more than a week after a bear had climbed an electric utility pole in northeastern New Mexico and was electrocuted, falling 22 feet.
That bear’s death gained national media attention after a video of the incident went viral.
The summer has been challenging for New Mexico’s black bears, which have been spotted in residential areas in the foothills and in rural areas.
Climate change has brought warmer, drier weather to the Southwest, leading to a weak winter with low snowpack. Despite the start of the summer monsoon, severe drought continues to grip New Mexico. Hungry bears are coming down from more wild and mountainous parts of the state in search of food and water into populated areas.
The result is a recent uptick — but not an unusual increase — in bear sightings in Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque and other parts of New Mexico, state wildlife officials have said.
Some Santa Fe residents living in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains have taken to recording and sharing bear encounters on social media. A popular hiking preserve off Canyon Road was closed earlier this month after three bears were spotted in the area.
In late June, a large black bear spent hours sitting in a tree in downtown Taos, the latest in a string of bear sightings, The Taos News reported. The Los Alamos-based newsletter Boomtown documented 72 calls to county officials reporting nuisance bears in the first six months of 2026 before reporting bear break-ins earlier this month.
At a least a dozen bears have been spotted this summer in neighborhoods near the Sandia Mountains, Albuquerque TV station KOAT reported.
Leading causes of death for New Mexico black bears — which actually range in color from black to brown to cinnamon to blond — include hunting, predation by other bears and depredation by officials after becoming accustomed to eating human food, according to the state Wildlife Department.
Data from the agency shows bears also die each year on roadways. A one-year period between 2024 and 2025 saw 17 accidental bear deaths, compared to 45 depredation kills and 591 by hunting.
