Bear Naked Truth

The "Kings Beach Bear's" GPS tracking collar as biologists found it this spring on the forest floor. CDFW photo by Mark Abraham.

In wildlife work, happy endings, feel-good stories and grand conclusions can be elusive.

Such is the case with the “Kings Beach Bear,” the big black bear that made national news in 2020 by entering local businesses on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore in search of food and crashing Kings Beach get-togethers, sending partygoers fleeing and helping itself to birthday cake and other treats. In the end, researchers may never know the ultimate fate of the animal also known as the “Safeway Bear” or the “Chevron Bear” for the Tahoe businesses it so brazenly frequented.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) scientists recovered the bear’s GPS tracking collar April 6 deep within the Stanislaus National Forest, near Beardsley Reservoir in Tuolumne County. The bear’s collar was completely intact, clasped closed and lying on the forest floor about 27 air miles southwest of CDFW’s Leek Springs Ecological Reserve in El Dorado County, where the bear was originally released Sept. 6, 2020.

“The collar had been sending satellite signals from the same location since January, but because of the snowpack, we couldn’t access it until April,” said Shelly Blair, CDFW’s unit wildlife biologist for Alpine and El Dorado counties. “We think the bear slipped the collar months before we could get to it. Originally, we thought the bear was denning in that location, but the site where we recovered the collar did not have any denning areas that we could find.”

Earlier collar signals showed the bear made a successful crossing of Highway 88 and passed through the Mokelumne River drainage above Salt Springs Reservoir into Amador County in October.

While bear scat and bear prints were found near the collar recovery site, no carcass or other evidence turned up indicating the current state of the bear. CDFW scientists suspect the collar – a modified, refurbished elk tracking collar – came free as the bear lost winter weight in the wild – removed from a diet of human food and garbage around Lake Tahoe.

CDFW trapped the Kings Beach bear that first week in September 2020. A veterinary exam revealed an old – more than 15 years old – male bear weighing a whopping 512 pounds with bad teeth and a poorly healed injury on its left hind foot. Due to its old age and lack of available space, placement in a permanent wildlife facility or zoo was not an option. The bear was taken to a large expanse of wild habitat on CDFW property in El Dorado County and released. In addition to a GPS tracking collar, the bear was outfitted with two identifying ear tags – a metal tag in its left ear numbered 1217 and a plastic orange tag in its right ear numbered 1274.

Although the bear’s whereabouts are unknown, CDFW does know that the bear stayed in the wild – for a few months at least before shedding its tracking collar. As far as CDFW is aware, the old bear has never returned to Lake Tahoe's North Shore where it caused such a stir last year and earned its celebrity status.

A young male bear, one of the "South Shore Four" rehabbing at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care the past year after being orphaned as a cub, is sedated while being outfitted with identifying ear tags and a GPS tracking collar prior to release back into the wild in April. CDFW photo by Shelly Blair.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) licenses and partners with nearly 100 private wildlife rehabilitation facilities around the state that provide important care, shelter and veterinary services to injured, orphaned and other displaced wildlife of all kinds.

What happens to these animals upon their recovery and release back into the wild often remains a mystery. That’s true even at the only two rehabilitation facilities licensed in California to work with black bears: The San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Campus in Southern California and Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care in South Lake Tahoe.

While the rehabilitated bears are almost always outfitted with an identifying ear tag or two prior to release, a feel-good video of the bears fleeing a portable trap on their way to freedom is often the last time biologists and wildlife rehabbers ever see them.

With a second chance at life in the wild, do the bears revel in their newfound freedom and stay as far away from people as possible and successfully transition to natural food sources? Or, after months of being cared for and closely watched at a rehabilitation facility, are the bears more comfortable around people, seeking out the nearest rural communities for the easy access to human food and garbage they can often supply? Do bears kept together in a rehabilitation facility and released together stay together in the wild? If so, for how long?

These are among the questions CDFW wildlife biologists are seeking answers to with the recent release of the “South Shore Four” – four young black bears, two males and two females, rehabbing together the past year at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care where they arrived as young-of-the-year cubs. Three of the four were orphaned when their two mothers were hit and killed by cars – one of the female cubs suffering a broken leg from a vehicle strike.

Fully recovered, weighing between 150 and 190 pounds each and old enough to survive on their own, the “South Shore Four” were released into a nearby national forest last month, two bears at a time. Three of the four cubs were fitted with GPS tracking collars that will alert biologists to their whereabouts four times a day if canopy cover allows. Biologists also receive a mortality signal 12 hours after no movement so that recovery and cause of death can be determined.

“We’re hoping to understand their movements directly after release, whether or not the ones that were released together stay together, the distances they travel and where they’re going,” said Shelly Blair, CDFW’s wildlife biologist for Alpine and El Dorado counties. “This is essential information to monitor the after-effects of almost a year in captivity and where they go. If they’re moving toward trouble – a campground or a community – we’ll be able to see that and get ahead of it if possible.”

GPS-tracking collars are an important research tool for wildlife biologists but also something of a precious commodity that cost between $800 and $2,000 each.

The collars are fastened around the bears’ necks with surgical tubing that will expand as they grow. After a few months of exposure to the elements, the tubing will deteriorate, and the collars will fall off to be recovered later. At that point, the South Shore Four’s research contributions will be short and likely complete, but will yield valuable information about the bear rehabilitation program and help improve CDFW's efforts to ensure the best possible outcome for these animals to be successful wild bears.

Video: Watch as two of the 'South Shore Four' are returned to the wild.

A female black bear takes in her surroundings from the safety of a pine tree after being trapped, tagged and hazed by state parks and wildlife staff last fall. CDFW photo by Travis VanZant.

As the Lake Tahoe Basin’s black bears emerge from their winter slow-down and slumber, campground managers, biologists, park rangers and wildlife officers hope to have a new tool at their disposal to help manage the human-bear conflicts certain to arise this spring and summer: a growing catalogue of Tahoe’s bear population.

Since the fall of 2019, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and California State Parks have teamed up to trap, tag and haze as many Tahoe bears as possible to identify individual bears, build a genetic database of the population, study its overall health, and whether related bears are passing down problem behaviors from one generation to the next. Eighteen bears have been trapped to date – four of those being recaptures. Genetic material is collected and each bear is outfitted with an identifying ear tag before release.

This May, CDFW will broaden the effort and team up with the U.S. Forest Service to trap, tag and haze additional bears within the Tahoe National Forest. The trapping takes place in short windows during the early spring and late fall off-seasons at Tahoe-area campgrounds. The bears are hazed – but not harmed – upon release to provide a negative human interaction and to see whether the experience will keep them away from campgrounds and people in the future.

In the following video, Shelly Blair, CDFW’s wildlife biologist for El Dorado and Alpine counties, and Sarinah Simons, California State Parks Sierra District human-bear management specialist, explain the innovative collaboration and scientific work during trapping efforts last fall.

A young black bear displaying neurological abnormalities, including a prominent head tilt, undergoes a CT scan at UC Davis in 2019. The bear became something of a social media sensation for approaching people at the Northstar ski resort before being treated by CDFW and placed with a wildife facility in San Diego, where the bear has required ongoing veterinary care. CDFW photo by Kirsten Macintyre.

The reports out of Pollock Pines, El Dorado County, last month sounded eerily familiar.

A small, black bear showed up at a utility worksite. It was alone and possibly sick – lethargic and showing little fear of people. The bear was largely unfazed by attempts to shoo it away by yelling and clapping.

Subsequent calls to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) reported the bear had moved into a residential backyard, once again acting lethargic – certainly underweight, perhaps dehydrated – and showing no fear of people. Contrary to CDFW guidance, residents began feeding the seemingly friendly little bear, admitting they had become attached to it. They supplied it with water, apples and strawberries. At one point, the bear jumped into a housekeeper’s open car trunk, prompting attempts to approach it and pet it.

When a CDFW wildlife biologist and warden went to investigate, they encountered a situation becoming more common in the Tahoe Basin and elsewhere around the state. They found a bear too young to be out on its own, “dog-like” in its behavior, completely comfortable around people, picking up an apple to eat in front of them on the backyard patio. Physically and mentally, the bear just didn’t seem quite right, walking oddly, dull and not responsive like a normal bear should be.

The bear was taken to CDFW’s Wildlife Investigations Laboratory (WIL) in Rancho Cordova for observation and evaluation by veterinarians. Covered in ticks, the yearling female was undersized and underweight for its age at a mere 21 pounds. A similarly aged bear should weigh closer to 80 pounds. Under observation in captivity, the bear displayed intermittent head tremors and a subtle head tilt, troubling signs of neurological abnormalities.

A week of observation and testing confirmed neurologic and behavioral deficits and the bear was euthanized. A post-mortem examination is underway. Preliminary findings have confirmed encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, which would make it the third bear with neurological disorders due to encephalitis to pass through CDFW’s WIL within the past 12 months. A fourth bear showing signs of neurological abnormalities, this one from Humboldt County, has since been euthanized and encephalitis confirmed in that case as well.

“Any time a wild animal comes into our care, the best-possible outcome is a release back to the wild,” explained CDFW wildlife veterinarian Brandon Munk. “That’s just not possible for these neurologically impaired bears. At this point, we don’t know what causes the encephalitis so we don’t know what, if any, health risks these bears might pose to other animals.

“The second-best outcome would be a long, healthy life at a reputable zoo or wildlife sanctuary, but any inflammation of the brain is going to be significant for the individual bear and may have long-term consequences,” Dr. Munk said. “The few bears like this we have placed do not seem to fully recover, some requiring significant medical management for the life of the bear, which is a huge burden for these facilities that often operate on tight budgets. So neither release back to the wild nor placement in a facility is a good option for these bears.”

The Nevada Department of Wildlife was the first to raise a red flag, alerting wildlife colleagues in California in 2014 to growing encounters in the Tahoe Basin with young black bears with neurological abnormalities. Veterinarians and biologists from the two state wildlife agencies met virtually again this month to share updates on the situation.

The neurologically impaired Pollock Pines black bear eats an apple in a residential backyard as a CDFW wildlife officer and wildlife biologist observe its behavior before taking it to CDFW's Wildlife Investigations Laboratory for testing and observation. CDFW photo by Shelly Blair.

Necropsies on the afflicted bears have confirmed encephalitis but the root cause of the disease remains a mystery. During their investigations into the cause, scientists have discovered five novel viruses – previously unknown and unidentified – though their relationship to the condition and the neurological disorders remain unknown.

Complicating matters for wildlife officials, the neurologically dull bears appear friendly to the public. Not fearing people, they may come into contact – and conflict – with humans more often.

One such bear with a prominent head tilt became a social media sensation in 2019 when it approached a snowboarder at the Northstar ski resort, stepping onto the snowboard at one point and curiously sniffing a pant leg as the amused snowboarder filmed the interaction for Instagram.

That bear is now three years old. Named Benji, it lives at the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Campus. CDFW received and treated another young bear for neurological abnormalities and placed it with the Orange County Zoo in 2014. These bears serve as something of a cautionary tale as neither fully recovered and both have required significant veterinary care, resources and treatment over time – expenses that are difficult for many wildlife facilities to absorb and limit the placement options for similarly afflicted bears in the future.

Openings or weaknesses in crawl spaces can be exploited by black bears looking for a warm spot to spend the winter. Property owners need to secure their properties in bear country. A black bear found this South Lake Tahoe home to its liking and set up a den underneath it for the winter. CDFW photo by Shelly Blair

hi·​ber·​nate | \ ˈhī-bər-ˌnāt  \

intransitive verb

1. to pass the winter in a torpid or resting state … bears hibernating in their dens
2. to be or become inactive or dormant … let the computer hibernate

– Merriam-Webster

Winter has arrived in the Tahoe Basin, prompting some homeowners and visitors to let down their guard, thinking bear conflicts are over for the season with the bruins off hibernating in the forests somewhere in a deep slumber.

Hardly, say veteran CDFW biologists. While most Tahoe Basin black bears definitely slow down and den up over the winter, some continue to access human food sources and remain active year-round.

A black bear explores a South Lake Tahoe front porch in winter looking for food. CDFW photo by Shelly Blair

It’s never too late for property owners to board up any openings under homes and decks if they know there’s no bear already inside. Bears are wild animals that do not belong under cabins or houses. They can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous if they feel trapped or become startled.

Vacation homeowners winterizing their properties should remove all food items from their unoccupied residences, including spices and canned goods. Biologists also encourage window coverings for unoccupied properties. Tahoe bears have been known to associate refrigerators and freezers with food (and can peek into homes looking for these appliances when searching for a potential meal). Tahoe residents and visitors need to remain vigilant in winter to secure food and garbage to discourage any active bears from becoming habituated and reliant on humans for food.

Being “bear aware” is a year-round necessity in the Tahoe Basin.