Ernie Feld, 89, owns a bakery in the town of Incline Village. He’s on the phone with a news reporter in mid-October asking him about a bear that attempted to enter his store by ripping off door and window frames in the middle of the night. Feld has had four bear incidents in six years at his bakery.
Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Ernie Feld makes apple strudel, cookies and poppy seed pastries.
His Incline Village bakery is also known for bear claws — but not the confectionary kind.
Feld’s scarred storefront — gouged by a black bear drawn by the scent of baked goods in October — is a glaring sign of the bear problem in the Reno-Tahoe region. The drought plaguing the West has diminished the natural supply of water and food at higher elevations where black bears normally roam. The dearth of provisions and a sense of smell 2,100-times better than humans have prompted black bears to forage among civilization.
This year a black bear made its way onto a Lake Tahoe beach during a hot July day. Another crashed an hors d’oeuvres table in a Tahoe hotel. One was spotted in the backyard of the governor’s mansion. Others have entered residential neighborhoods a few miles from downtown Reno.
Photos on Facebook show bears opening car doors to scarf food on the inside. Others show bears that followed a scent inside homes.
Residents also showcase bear handiwork on the Lake Tahoe Wall of Shame Facebook page. There are defaced trash cans and ravaged trash bins. One video shows a bear climbing into a truck bed, grabbing a cooler with its teeth and running off.
Nevada Department of Wildlife received “hundreds of phone calls” from residents about bear sightings in the past two years, said Chris Healy, NDOW spokesman.
In 2014, NDOW captured and released 93 bears — a more than 130 percent increase from 2009 and 34 percent increase from a decade ago. Last year, NDOW captured and released 97. Those numbers are the highest on record save for 2007 — a drought year that saw 159 captures. After bears are trapped, wildlife officials tag and relocate bears to the wilderness as part of an ongoing study. Research suggests bears will often return to familiar locations once they are released and continue previous behavior.
This year, the state handled an additional 45 bears that were either hit by cars, killed during hunting season or died from natural causes. NDOW euthanized three bears: the bear that wandered on the beach and two that killed livestock. The department says there are at least 300 bears in the Reno-Carson region of the Sierra.
It’s a myth that black bears are flesh eating threats to human existence. Unlike grizzlies, black bears are predominantly herbivores who will eat meat or use force if necessary or provoked. They prefer berries over pizza and would rather be remote than in the middle of a shopping center.
Feld, 89, said his bear visit was his fourth in six years. He first thought a clumsy burglar was trying to get into his shop, but it didn’t take long to realize it was a bear. Feld turned on the lights and made a racket to scare the bear away.
“He waited until the night to try and get in,” Feld said.
The bear influx has spurred a debate about how communities can cohabitate with animals that can reach 400-plus pounds in a region known for tourists and metropolitan vacationers who think bears are a cute novelty.
There’s an increasing push in the community for more public education and demand for more personal responsibility to help deter bears from areas with high densities of people.
Non-profit groups are doing what they can to raise awareness and push for policy changes. NDOW, still reeling from a series of budget cuts during the recession, is doing what it can to educate the community and manage wildlife. It lost a full-time outreach official after 2007 but brought back a part-time person this year.
The bears’ path of destruction is the collective fault of an uncompromising climate, locals and vacationers. Tourists leave food unsealed at campgrounds or trash outside at rental condos, attracting the animals. Vacation homeowners in the region often do the same. Locals, too, are among the biggest culprits. Some have come under fire for feeding bears or leaving food in cars. Some restaurants don’t protect their garbage. Others don’t want to spend the money on bear-proof trash cans and deterrent methods.
“Some people don’t have a clue,” said Megan Warren, a member of the Incline Village BEAR League, an arm of the California-based group of the same name.
The Legislature passed a policy in 2013 prohibiting people from feeding large wildlife, but there are no laws protecting against leaving food in cars, not securing trash cans or other behavior that draws bears.
“There is no accountability for people up here,” Warren said.
The BEAR League is the Reno-Tahoe region’s prominent cohabitation advocacy group. The non-profit started as a three-person operation and now boasts 250 trained members responding around-the-clock to bear calls in California and Nevada.
Executive director Ann Bryant started it 16 years ago and rose to national fame when she starred in a TV show about Lake Tahoe bears on Animal Planet. This year, its members canvassed more than 2,000 homes around Lake Tahoe and worked with local business leaders to raise awareness about minimizing bear human contact.
The league and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have worked in tandem for years to educate the public about bears. California-based BEAR League members occasionally take calls to assist law enforcement with bear issues. They work in conjunction with state officials on outreach programs, and operate a bear hotline that can often receive 20 to 40 calls per night. With the support of the state, members will go to residences or public places with air horns and other deterrents to rattle bears back into the wilderness.
“They are our eyes and ears in the Tahoe Basin,” said Mark Jeter, patrol captain for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But league members and Nevada officials don’t have a similar relationship.
In Nevada, the league and state officials don’t coordinate or collaborate on calls. The league describes Nevada policies on trapping and euthanization as inhumane, and believes that the best solution is for residents to learn to keep bears from coming in the first place. Their methods include keeping food and trash in sealed containers, shutting windows and closing garage doors.
Nevada’s BEAR League members have protested around bear traps, while other activists in the region have come under fire and even faced criminal penalties for their advocacy. An Incline Village resident received anonymous death threats after asking NDOW for a trap.
A mother and daughter were convicted of misdemeanors after they were caught tampering with an NDOW trap.
BEAR League members say they don’t take radical action and have reached out to local officials to try and build a relationship, but nothing has come of their efforts.
Healy said NDOW is ultimately responsible for managing the bears, and that officials want to keep activists out of their way.
“We’ve been portrayed as callous, and that’s unfair,” he said. “But with this issue, I realize how much people care.”
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