The Battle Over Black Bears
April 09, 2025 at 04:30PMDecades ago, in the ’80s, bear sightings in South Lake Tahoe were rare. But today, close encounters between bears and humans are everyday occurrences. In this story for Alta, Jordan Fisher Smith reports on the rise of home invasions in the Lake Tahoe region—one of which turned deadly in November 2023—and the fight between animal activists and state agencies who don’t agree on how to handle the issue.
Through DNA testing, authorities have identified more than 320 bears in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Biologists estimate there are more than 400 total. Of those, in a tally of figures from the end of 2023, 16 food-conditioned bears were responsible for more than half of all reported bear-human conflicts on the California side. In the deeply divided realm of Tahoe bear management, what does seem to be helping—if only at individual addresses that have them—is electric doormats, called “unwelcome mats”; window wires; and other deterrents that give bears a nonlethal shock when they approach an opening. The BEAR League lends them out for free to homeowners.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/04/09/the-battle-over-black-bears/
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