In Lake Tahoe, a Mother Bear’s Break-ins Have Her at Risk of Being Killed

Hope has earned a reputation for what could be called urban foraging — rummaging through South Lake Tahoe cabins and, more recently, a preschool for food to feed herself and her young cub.

While the repeated break-ins have proved an effective way for the 5-year-old black bear to find a delicious meal, they’ve also earned her a spot on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s “conflict bear” list, making her vulnerable to euthanasia.

Wildlife advocates in the Tahoe area are fighting to stop CDFW from killing Hope, which they say won’t stop the break-ins but would leave her cub, Bounce, an orphan — and other hungry bears more likely to meet the same fate.

“Hope should not be singled out as the most notorious, incorrigible break-in bear. Other mother [bears] are all doing the same thing,” said Ann Bryant, the executive director of the BEAR League, a nonprofit that aims to protect bears in the Tahoe region. “So our concern is once they kill her, then are they just going to move on to the next family?”

While Hope has lived in South Lake Tahoe for about five years, the BEAR League has been keeping a closer eye on her and Bounce since the spring, when they emerged from hibernation hungry and making repeated unwelcome visits to homes.

Two weeks ago, staffers at a South Lake Tahoe preschool arrived on a Monday morning to find Hope and Bounce inside, intensifying fears that they could pose threats to people in the Tahoe Keys neighborhood.

But as Hope’s case illustrates, such run-ins — which are becoming increasingly common in the Tahoe area — pose a threat to the bears, too.

Peter Tira, a CDFW spokesperson, said Hope is different from many bears in that she breaks into homes repeatedly and is teaching her cub to do the same.

That’s gotten her deemed a “conflict bear,” a CDFW designation that means she could be subject to long-term captivity, relocation or death if she comes in contact with staff.

But Bryant said bears like Hope aren’t born with an instinct to enter buildings and rummage through homes. In the Tahoe region, they’ve been conditioned to do so by tourists and others who don’t protect their homes from bears, despite taking over their natural habitat.

“When a window’s open and [Hope] smells a pie inside on the counter, she’s going to go in and get it,” Bryant said.

Bears are intelligent; when they’re repeatedly lured toward people’s homes by wafts of food, they learn that humans’ kitchens are a good place to find their next meal.

They think, “This is an easy way to make a living,” Bryant said.

Bryant said most of Hope’s break-ins, especially her early ones, were “soft entries,” using non-destructive means like an open window or unlocked door to get in.

At Step by Step Early Learning Center, the preschool Hope broke into, Tira said he believes employees might have left a door to the building unlocked or open over the weekend.

Often, though, after a bear makes a soft entry and gets its first taste or two of human food, it can get more aggressive. Hope has broken into multiple homes by smashing windows, according to Bryant.

Tira said that’s made her “a very serious public safety situation.”

“Mother bears are incredibly protective of their cubs,” he said. “Let’s say these two bears enter a home and there’s elderly people there or children or somebody inadvertently gets in the way of the mother cub. There’s all sorts of scenarios that could play out that we don’t want to see happen.”

Bryant said killing Hope isn’t going to neutralize that threat.

“They’ll see after she’s dead, if they succeed: ‘Uh-oh, here’s another break in, and it sure wasn’t Hope,’” Bryant said. “The way to resolve this is not just to kill and kill and kill until there’s no bears left.”

She believes that CDFW should focus more on highlighting the conditions that contribute to bear break-ins, and teaching people how to prevent them.

“We need them to help us tell people that if you don’t want bears in your building, in your home or in your preschool or in your church or wherever, close and lock the windows and doors,” Bryant said, adding that trash should be secured in bear-proof containers, which are abundant around public beaches and rental properties, and food shouldn’t be left in cars or outdoors.

Homeowners can also have bear wires set up around their property that are effective at keeping the animals away.

Bryant said bear safety education is especially important now, as more people buy second homes in Tahoe and rent during the off-season thanks to the rise in remote work during COVID-19.

While break-ins have always happened, they became more common as out-of-towners moved in, unaware of the precautions necessary when sharing a habitat with more wild animals.

“The mistakes they made during that time, until they got with the program and started to research and ask questions … really trained a lot of bears on the tricks of getting into homes and getting into refrigerators,” Bryant said.

In 2021, the Caldor and Tamarack fires that burned tens of thousands of acres of Tahoe’s backcountry also forced more bears to move into developed parts of the region. Many have stayed because of the easier access to food they found there.

“That was the big turning point,” she said.

Although CDFW has year-round educational programming, Tira said the agency is also responsible for many priorities throughout the state of California, and doesn’t have the staffing to focus on changing local ordinances or zoning that could decrease the frequency of bear break-ins.

As for Hope, he said the department is not actively searching for her to kill her. If Hope is killed, Bryant said Bounce would be placed in a rehabilitation center.

For the past three weeks, groups of volunteers have been watching Hope daily, scurrying her away from neighborhoods and trying to keep her out of trouble.

Bryant said they’re hoping to get a message through to state officials: “The citizens and the residents don’t want her to die. We think it’s deplorable and there are other options.”