It's Stephen Colbert's worst fear come true. The bears are taking over Manchester.

The Comedy Central host of the Colbert Report is deathly afraid of bears, calling them “godless killing machines.”

While that may be a little harsh, we've seen more than a few stories of bear and other large animal sightings in the city limits this year.

What gives?

I asked someone at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department what was going on. I was told it may be more than just a late-night foraging for food.

“I expect it's more a result of a dispersal of animals; the social break-up that occurs during the late spring,” Mark Ellingwood, a certified wildlife biologist with Fish and Game told me. “The females breed with males and (there's) sort of a disintegration of those bonds with male bears in particular.”

I've been there.

Basically, the bear was lonely, and looking for love, if only to comfort his recent losses. In the case of the bear seen at the intersection of Wall and Elm streets, he isn't unlike many human males in their 20s. What better place to do that, than over a pint or two on a late night? Might I suggest the Shaskeen?

And the moose! Facebook was littered with pictures of moose on the loose in Manchester this week. The reason may be similar.

“Like teenagers, these guys don't always make the best decisions, and go off on an adventure and get into difficult circumstances,” Ellingwood said.

They follow the Merrimack River, which inevitably leads them to Manchester. It is a nice way of saying they were rebelling, indignant teenagers. “I have two,” Ellingwood said, referring to the bears' human counterparts.

Spring does that to a young man, or beast, or beastly man. It brings out the best and worst of us — all of God's creatures ... or godless ones, if Colbert is correct.

In all seriousness, things can get ugly real fast. A mother bear and her cubs are nothing to reckon with. The sighting in Grafton, where a woman was mauled by a momma bear with her cubs, is a case in point.

When I was a kid, I was on a bike ride with a friend and spotted a similar scenario. We were biking up a hill, heads down, when I looked up to see the brood — not 20 feet in front of us.

My friend and I froze. I must have been 12 or 13 at the time.

The mother looked at us, and we looked down, avoiding eye contact. That day we were lucky. We were also pretty scrawny, so I suspect we looked less than harmless. Not that I'm harmful looking now.

And there are those who, even innocently, bait the bears in order to get photo and video of them.

“Lots of people are accommodating the bears by default,” Ellingwood said. “In order to get those kind of bear shots, at least in most cases, you have to be facilitating or feeding.”

Adolescent bears on the prowl, looking for love and a quick bite.

Manchester is filled with them lately. And other wildlife, too.

Stephen Colbert has much to be concerned about.

Adam McCune is the author of “Funny Man Down.” McCune's Manchester appears Thursdays in the New Hampshire Union Leader. You can email Adam at amccune@gmail.com.