Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Bear Stories -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (532)	5/31/2006 8:24:32 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6879

Tahoe's Brazen Garbage Bears May 31, 2006, 02:01 PM klastv.com A youthful group of brazen bears taught to do their hunting in trash bins instead of in the wild is exhibiting behavior experts fear could cost them their lives from humans -- the source of most of their aggressiveness. The yearling black bears are the survivors of more than a dozen cubs born last year in the area, said Carl Lackey, a biologist and bear expert for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. More than half have been hit by cars and killed. "The ones that survived are causing nothing but problems, just like juvenile delinquents," Lackey said. The bears, schooled in the business of trash bin banditry by their mothers, are on the prowl in Stateline and Kingsbury Grade. "They're crawling up on the decks, they're crawling into the garbage, they're out in the night and they're out all day long," Mike Paulson, maintenance supervisor for the Tahoe Village condo complex, told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I used to see about three a month. Now I'm seeing four a day. They're everywhere." Lackey, who's studied the behavior of Tahoe's urban bears for years, said this particular group of animals is troubling because they are particularly bold and totally unafraid of people. Lackey said he's approached within 5 feet and they showed no urge to run away. He's concerned he could be forced to shoot them. "It's their close proximity to people and the lack of that flee instinct that worries me," Lackey said. "It's getting close to the point with a couple of these bears where we will have to euthanize them." People are to blame. The trash they left outside turned mother bears into garbage bears. And there's no shortage of human-related food available to this second generation of trouble-causers. Some folks are leaving trash bins open, perhaps even deliberately, to attract the young bears for photographs. "I've seen them feed them," Paulson said of tourists staying at his complex. Bear concentrations around Tahoe and along the Carson Range are believed to be the second-densest in North America, behind only some salmon-rich streams in Washington state, all because the animals have such easy access to human food. Research by Lackey and others has shown that year-round access to food has many bears spending less time hibernating, with some remaining active throughout the winter. A diet high in calorie-rich garbage also is producing bigger bears. Lackey found that a quarter of the bears frequenting urban parts of Nevada weigh more than 400 pounds. If bears become too much of a problem, killing them may be the only option. Relocation doesn't work. Over a five-year period ending in 2002, Lackey and colleagues captured eight bears at Tahoe and moved them far to the east into Nevada. Within a few weeks, they all returned. "The majority of the problem is garbage," Lackey said. "People are still not being responsible. They just don't get it." * * *