The Bears In Spearfish Canyon Aren't Just Passing Through Anymore
September 24, 2026
September 24, 2026
On the morning of June 24, a hiker walking near Spearfish Canyon Lodge turned around and told staff she'd seen a bear. By 8 a.m., Dale Schmidt, who handles maintenance for the lodge and the Latchstring Restaurant, had a directive: keep the dogs inside. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks sent officers and hounds. Trails toward Roughlock Falls and Higgins Gulch closed in both directions while crews spent the day pushing the animal, a young male that had gotten into unsecured trash near a shed, back up and over the ridge. Schmidt said he'd heard the bear likely wandered in from Wyoming.
That framing, a lone animal drifting through from somewhere else, is getting harder to hold onto. What's actually happening in the canyon this fall looks less like a visitor passing through and more like a resident population settling in, and the people who live along the byway are adjusting their routines accordingly.
Three weeks after the lodge incident, residents near Lead's Kirk area started reporting their own sightings, close enough to town that the city issued a public advisory. Mike Klosowski, the regional supervisor for South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, looked at the spread, Spearfish, Johnson Siding, even inside Rapid City limits, and drew a conclusion that changes the story:
"Officials are confident that multiple bears are currently moving through the area rather than just a single wandering individual."
That distinction matters to anyone living between Spearfish and Lead. A single bear passing through is a rare event you might mention at dinner once. Several bears using the same corridor at the same time is a pattern, and patterns change how you plan an evening walk.
The Black Hills have functioned for most of modern memory as what wildlife researchers call an island habitat, a pocket of dense timber surrounded by prairie too open and dry for bears to cross easily. Black bears were nearly absent from South Dakota for most of the 20th century. Confirmed sightings didn't start reappearing in official state records until its final decade, as bears migrated in naturally from the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming and the forests of Montana.
South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks now puts a number on how far that recovery has come. Confirmed black bear sightings in the Black Hills have increased 10 to 15 times in recent years, officials told KBHB News in July. For a generation of canyon residents who grew up hearing that bears simply didn't live here, that's not a rounding error. It's a different animal population than the one their parents knew.
Hyperphagia is the word wildlife biologists use for what black bears do every fall, and it's the reason this particular week matters more than most. Bears entering this phase can spend up to 20 hours a day searching for food, driven by the need to build fat reserves before denning for winter. Garbage, pet food, bird feeders, and grills all become fair game, according to a wildlife roundup published September 16 tracking the surge across the northern Rockies. That report landed four days ago, which puts the canyon squarely inside the window where this year's feeding push is still building, not winding down.
None of the drought and berry-crop data collected this year comes from South Dakota specifically. But the same officials tracking hyperphagia in Wyoming and Montana are describing one of the roughest natural forage years on record in those states, and the Black Hills sit at the eastern edge of the same mountain forest system those bears call home. A canyon with more resident bears than it had a decade ago is now running through a fall feeding season that's harder on bears everywhere nearby. Those two facts don't need to share a state line to add up to more encounters at the mouth of the canyon.
In the wake of the June sightings, Beautify Spearfish, the local nonprofit better known for its trash pickups than wildlife messaging, put out a short, specific list of asks for canyon households:
None of this is new advice invented for a bad summer. Beautify Spearfish runs monthly clean-up events along the canyon corridor from April through November, weather permitting, including an August 26 cleanup based out of the large parking lot at the mouth of the canyon and sponsored by Lifetime Eyecare. The group's attractant guidance sits inside a standing routine of community stewardship that was already built for this stretch of road, which is part of why it's been easy to fold bear-awareness into what canyon neighbors are already doing every month.
The shift from occasional sighting to standing management question has made its way to the state level. In July, Republican state representative Tim Goodwin appeared before the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission to ask them to study the feasibility of a black bear hunting season, citing complaints from residents in Keystone and Hill City about bears getting into yards and garbage cans. Whatever comes of that request, its existence tells you something on its own. Black Hills bear activity has moved from a summer news item into a question state officials are being asked to plan around for the long term.
For anyone living along Highway 14A this season, the practical adjustments are small but specific. Trash goes out the morning of pickup rather than the night before. Bird feeders and pet bowls come in after dark. A quick check of Beautify Spearfish's page before an evening hike toward Roughlock Falls or Higgins Gulch tells you whether that stretch is clear. Dogs stay leashed at the pull-offs, not just on marked trails, since the June incident started with a hiker's dog off leash near a shed full of trash. Early morning and dusk remain the hours when bears are most likely to be moving, which lines up with when the lodge's own sighting came in.
None of this makes the canyon a less appealing place to spend a fall evening. It just means the routines locals already follow, securing food, giving wildlife room, checking in with neighbors before a hike, matter a little more this year than last. The same community that shows up with trash grabbers and 5-gallon buckets every month is the one keeping an eye on the ridgeline now too.
Black Hills Real Estate Pros keeps a close watch on the rhythms of every canyon season, the ones with gold aspens and the ones with wildlife on the move. If you're curious what else is shifting along the byway this fall, or you're ready to talk about property along the corridor, reach out to Black Hills Real Estate Pros to start living your vision.
Get assistance in determining current property value, crafting a competitive offer, writing and negotiating a contract, and much more. Contact Falina today.