SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Spring is in the air in the foothills around Placer County, meaning Rob Hyde’s property in Applegate needs yardwork. He isn’t the only one who knows it’s lush and green in the foothills.
Bears coming out of hibernation are sniffing out berries and new grass shoots. Cameras at Hyde’s neighbor’s house caught a bear forgoing the greenery, instead going for the store-bought food inside Hyde’s nextdoor neighbor’s home in late-April.
“It got into their mudroom, and they were sleeping,” Hyde said. “They have two kids. And they didn’t know about it till after the video. And it took a big bag of pet food.”
Several miles north in Colfax, Raymond Washburn is excited to have chickens again after a bear ate his previous brood two years ago. His latest visit from one in mid-April tested the strapping on their trash bin.
“About 1:30 in the morning and you could hear the can getting knocked over and we get up and we hear the dogs going crazy,” Washburn said. “And we go up to the window and a bear is standing right there [in the front yard].”
While bear sightings in the foothills aren’t new, executive director of the Bear League, Ann Bryant, who helps rescue and educate the public about bears in Tahoe, said the lower-elevations are seeing more bears than normal because the many bears around Tahoe woke to a heavy snowpack that is still persisting, forcing them down the mountains.
“Lots of calls from the lower elevations all around Tahoe on all four sides,” Bryant said. “And these people don’t know what to do and they are not prepared for it.”
Bryant said bears getting into bird feeders and unsecured trash of people who aren’t used to them have been the bulk of the calls. She worries the easy food and a snowpack that isn’t melting quickly will have lasting effects on the bears that are usually at higher elevations.
“I think the snow will melt enough that they could come back, but will they want to?” she said. “Because if they’re finding food in a new territory, trees to climb, the food is good, why would they come back?”
It’s something Hyde said he’s also thought about considering not all his neighbors are from the area and aware bears are looking for easy meals like unsecured trash.
“If you’re familiar with these things around here, you know not to do that,” he said. “But I mean, you get people that come from the Bay Area or wherever they moved from, and they’re not familiar, sure they might get a visit.”
Hyde said he hopes the bear visits will quickly educate his unfamiliar neighbors, so the bears can go back to where they’re meant to be and the food they’re meant to eat.
Bryant suggests if you do encounter a bear, make loud noises to tell the bear this is not a place for them to get food. She also wants people to remember to feed pets inside, store your trash securely and remember that it is illegal and dangerous to feed bears.