Bear Naked Truth

Incidents with black bears in the Tahoe Keys area of South Lake Tahoe are getting national and international attention. Tahoe is natural bear habitat, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) takes each of these periodic incidents seriously.

CDFW is enlisting the community’s support and cooperation to conduct a thorough effort to keep bears away from people and homes and— when needed— to trap, tag and work to relocate habituated bears. All of these efforts are focused on keeping residents safe, and enabling safe and healthy conditions for these bears.

While recent incidents of bears invading homes were originally thought to be a single bear, DNA evidence collected from the most recent incident as well as prior incidents over the past several months prove that at least three bears were responsible for breaking into numerous residences. The most recent incident was attributed to a large black bear (the same bear the public is calling “Hank”) likely based on visual observation. Considering new evidence suggesting multiple bears are responsible for recent incidents, CDFW will work in coming weeks and months to trap bears in the South Lake Tahoe area, tag them, collect evidence for genetic analysis, and then release them into suitable habitat. During this effort, CDFW will gather information and learn from scientific analysis to help inform and refine our bear management in the Lake Tahoe Basin. CDFW is not going to euthanize any bears that are trapped during this effort.

Identifying bears simply by their visible, physical characteristics can lead to misidentifying bears and therefore confusing management efforts. The genetic information gleaned from our effort in the South Lake Tahoe area will assist CDFW by expanding its database of bear genetics and hopefully preventing future misidentification of bears.

For this effort to be successful, CDFW will need ample community support. First, CDFW requests the Tahoe Keys and surrounding communities to collaborate on the placement of traps to protect both residents and the bears. CDFW must have approval to place traps on private property and will need that access for this effort to work. Additionally, for traps to work, they must be left alone and not vandalized or harmed in any way.

It is critical that Tahoe Keys residents and everyone who lives or recreates in the Lake Tahoe Basin carefully store food and trash. Increasingly, CDFW is involved in bear/human conflicts that could have been avoided by people taking a few simple actions. Bears are primarily scent-driven when seeking food. Improperly stored human food and trash are likely attracting bears into this neighborhood. We all need to take all precautions to store food and trash properly to protect ourselves, our neighbors and local bears. Additional information and resources are available at CDFW’s Keep Me Wild: Black Bear web page.

CDFW has been reaching out to local governments and homeowners’ associations to educate residents and visitors of Lake Tahoe about “bear-proofing” homes, including installation of bear-proof garbage receptacles. CDFW will continue this important outreach and is exploring options to ensure that homes in the Lake Tahoe Basin are equipped with these receptacles.

CDFW’s new bear policy highlights the importance of these actions, and establishes a clear process to address each unique situation with bear/human conflict as it arises. It takes an adaptive management approach that relies on community partnerships.

By working together, these efforts to protect residents and bears can be successful. We appreciate everyone’s engagement as we work through this situation in a thoughtful, science-based, transparent manner.

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

When California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) biologists recovered a GPS tracking collar deep within the Stanislaus National Forest in April, they suspected that was the final chapter in the saga of the “Kings Beach Bear.”

Also known as the “Safeway Bear” or the “Chevron Bear,” the big, male black bear made headlines in 2020 (YouTube) by entering local business on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore – including a Safeway and Chevron convenience store – rummaging for food and crashing Kings Beach get-togethers, helping itself to birthday cake and other treats and prompting widespread concern.

CDFW trapped the problem bear in September 2020, affixed identifying ear tags – a metal tag in its left ear numbered 1217 and a plastic orange tag in its right ear numbered 1274 – along with the GPS tracking collar and ultimately released the bear into remote wild habitat in El Dorado County.

With the bear’s tracking collar recovered last spring – with no sign or evidence of the bear otherwise – two potential outcomes were discussed. In a best-case scenario, the bear successfully transitioned to a natural diet and life in the wild, losing winter weight that allowed the GPS collar to come free. In a worse-case scenario, the old bear – estimated at more than 15 years old – was unable to adjust, lost weight and died.

The ultimate fate of the Kings Beach Bear proved much more tragic and traumatic.

In early August, a CDFW biologist and wildlife officer responded to calls of a large black bear shot and killed at a campground in Alpine County near Hermit Valley.

A large family with many small children was camping in the area when a large black bear approached their campsite repeatedly during the early evening and late hours of the night. Multiple attempts to haze the bear and shoo it away proved unsuccessful.

The campsite was clean and the family had properly stored and secured their food and garbage. Fearing for its safety, the family shot and killed the bear when it approached their campsite yet again – and reported the shooting to officials. The family was distraught when CDFW showed up to investigate.

At the scene, CDFW officials saw the 1274 orange tag in the bear’s right ear, identifying it unmistakably as the Kings Beach Bear. The bear – once weighing more than 500 pounds – was a shell of its former self, completely emaciated, its teeth rotten.

As one CDFW biologist later said, “Ultimately, the actions of the shooter was the most humane outcome for this bear.”

CDFW wildlife officers ruled the shooting justified. And CDFW biologists now have more empirical evidence and a rather traumatic case study about the ability of human food-conditioned bears to successfully transition to life in the wild.

For tips and best practices to keep Tahoe’s bears from becoming accustomed and dependent on human food sources, visit Keep Tahoe Bears Wild. Additional information and resources are available at CDFW’s Keep Me Wild: Black Bear webpage.

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.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and California State Parks are teaming up on a black bear research project in the Lake Tahoe Basin starting this fall. The goal is to gather genetic information on individual bears so that wildlife managers can identify individuals, better understand relatedness among bears, further understand their behavior and movements, and acquire a greater sense of the relative density of this species throughout the Tahoe Basin. Three black bears already have been captured, tagged and released this week as part of this scientific initiative.

Sarinah Simons from California State Parks collects a saliva sample from a Tahoe Basin black bear last spring. CDFW and State Parks are collaborating this fall to build a DNA database and inventory of Lake Tahoe's black bear population. CDFW photo.

The biologists will capture, immobilize and ear-tag individual bears while collecting biological samples (DNA through blood, hair, and saliva swabs). Trapped bears will receive a full field evaluation and the animal’s vital signs—heart rate, temperature, and respiration—will be monitored throughout the entire process. An inventory and DNA database of the Tahoe Basin's bear population will be accumulated over time.

Aversive hazing (“tough love”) may be applied to bears upon release. Techniques will include bean bag and paint ball projectiles as well as air horns. These tactics are based on a simple principle: If bears are smart enough to learn from positive experiences, perhaps they are smart enough to learn from negative ones as well.

Through this collaborative partnership, CDFW and State Parks aim to reduce the number and frequency of human-bear conflicts and restore black bears in Lake Tahoe to their natural and wild behavior. However, this can only be done through positive cooperation from the public. This includes storing all food and garbage in secure, bear-proof facilities, discouraging bears from residing in developed areas and NEVER feeding bears or other wildlife. Together, we can all work to keep Tahoe bears safe and wild.

CDFW and State Parks will attempt to capture, tag and release as many black bears as possible in the Tahoe Basin this fall in order to build up a DNA database of the population, be able to identify individual bears responsible for conflicts and provide aversive hazing to minimize future human-bear conflicts. CDFW photo.