A black bear was found dead along the highway near Shafter on Monday, another wildlife mortality in a part of Far West Texas where black bears have been making a natural comeback.
Video shared by the Facebook page Ojinaga: Compras y ventas shows the dead bear beside the roadway on the climb toward Shafter, near Elephant Rock, also known as Cibolo Rock, a prominent landmark along the route. The video was provided to the page by Lalo Sáenz.
The bear appears to have been moved out of the travel lane and onto the roadside, although it was not immediately clear how the animal died or who moved it. The circumstances of its death had not been independently confirmed Monday evening.
The discovery is notable because Presidio County lies within the Trans-Pecos, home to Texas’ established black bear population. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says at least two black bear subspecies are believed to occur in West Texas, including the Mexican black bear, Ursus americanus eremicus, and the New Mexico black bear, Ursus americanus amblyceps.
The Mexican black bear has played an important role in the species’ return to Far West Texas. Black bears once occupied much of the state but disappeared from most of Texas after decades of hunting, predator control and habitat changes. Bears survived in the mountains of northern Mexico, particularly Chihuahua and Coahuila, and animals from those populations eventually began naturally recolonizing the Trans-Pecos.
By the mid-1990s, a small breeding population had reestablished itself in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park. Black bears have continued to expand into other portions of the Trans-Pecos, making their return to Texas one of the state’s notable wildlife recovery stories.
Vehicle collisions have emerged as one danger to that recovery. In July 2025, a 302-pound black bear was killed after being struck by a vehicle on Texas Highway 118 south of Alpine. Texas wildlife officials have documented multiple black bear deaths from vehicle collisions in the Trans-Pecos in recent years.
Black bears are listed as a threatened species in Texas and are protected by state law. Wildlife officials encourage the public to report black bear sightings and mortalities so biologists can continue tracking the species’ recovery and movements.
The dead bear found near Shafter is another reminder that as black bears reclaim their historic range in the Texas-Mexico borderlands, the animals increasingly encounter highways cutting through the mountains and desert they once occupied in far greater numbers.
