Scientists have pointed to fierce wildfires that raged in the area at the end of summer, including the Dixie fire, California’s largest ever, which decimated 963,000 acres.

With the ground scorched, bears had to travel further to find food.

“I can’t think of a worse situation for wildlife — bears running for their lives from fire and then getting whacked by cars,” Fraser Shilling, director of the Road Ecology Centre at UC Davis told the LA Times. 

“It’s a biological tragedy compounded by the fact that humans are responsible for the climate changes that set the stage for these increasingly immense and deadly wildfires.”

There are further concerns for wildlife much further north, in Montana, where a record number of wolves have been killed by hunters, following a change in the law. 

Twenty of Yellowstone National Park’s renowned grey wolves roamed from the park and were shot by hunters in recent months – the most killed by hunting in a single season since the predators were reintroduced to the region more than 25 years ago, according to park officials.