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LAKE TAHOE-

Ann Bryant was busy all winter, into early spring, serving eviction notices. To bears.

Bryant, the executive director of Lake Tahoe’s Bear League, and a team of trained volunteers used loud noises to scare bears out of crawl spaces at the request of homeowners who don’t want the animals hibernating underfoot.

They also do this with the blessing of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We know what we’re doing.  We’ve done it hundreds of times.  No one’s ever been hurt,” Bryant said.

Dry Winter Weather Brings Out Bears and Bugs
File photo

The mission of the Bear League is to promote a peaceful coexistence between Tahoe’s bears and humans. That means teaching both species to avoid each other.

In winter, the hope is that an evicted bear will find a more natural den and not a home’s crawl space. Many bears have learned that it’s easy to find feasts inside homes and cabins.

“They fight to survive, and if it means breaking down a door or checking to see if a window got left open, that’s what they’re going to do,” Bryant told FOX40. “A hungry animal will not just give up.”

With this year’s drought conditions, bears’ natural diet of shoots, berries and pine cones will be in short supply, meaning encounters with humans are even more likely.

As it gets warmer, the Bear League will use the same loud tactics to evict the bears.

Those living or visiting in bear country are told to make sure garbage and camp food is locked up, pet food is not left out and homes are not made inviting to bears.

To help, the Bear League recommends electric fences.

“As long as you flip the switch on, the bears will get shocked if they try and go in.  It doesn’t kill them.  It doesn’t kill anything else.  It just shocks them, and they run away, and they don’t want anything to do with that house again,” Bryant said.

DFW officials do sometimes issue permits to kill bears if they become a nuisance, so the animals that are afraid of humans stand the best chance of survival.

There is a wealth of information of the Bear League’s website about how the animals behave and how humans should behave around them. Click here to learn more.