18-year-old Derek Sears was enjoying a day on the shores of South Lake Tahoe at Pope Beach when a black bear appeared and started pillaging a cooler full of drinks and cookies. Derek tossed a beach chair at the bear in an attempt to scare it away but the bear was completely unfazed.
As the bear continue to rummage around the beach, an un-named man burst onto the scene wielding a long handled shovel. The man banged the shovel off a picnic table, trees and in the end the bears nose.
After getting a shovel to the snout the bear retreated back into the forest. Black bears normally eat around 5,000 calories a throughout the the year (20,000 calories a day in the fall before hibernation). Black bear spend up to 20 hours a day searching for food and tend to go for the easiest sources of calories whether they be naturally occurring or manmade:
“Anyone coming to the Tahoe area should educate themselves on bear behavior and general bear ecology. There are a lot of bears here and those bears have an incredibly strong sense of smell and a strong desire for food that intensifies at different times of the year, particularly in the fall with the onset of hyperphagia,” -Alexia Ronning, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW)
While you may not consider beaches as campsites, the same rules apply when it comes to preventing bear incursions. Keep a tidy area and dispose of all food in bear-proof trash cans.
California State Parks Bear Facts and Tips: