Is California's bear population increasing? Here's what we learned

You've seen the videos, take a look, bears running across ski slopes in the Sierra. And you know, it has people across the state including state leaders asking are there more bears here in California or does everyone just have a camera nowadays? Huh? ABC Ten's Devin Truby explains. Oh my God, the Tahoe area's black bear population has gone viral this year from a mom or Cubs trekking across canyon lifted heavenly or this one crisscrossing the slopes videos have brought a whole new meaning to the term bear country. We think now in the in the state of California is more than 60,000 and a previous estimate. Going back into the late nineties, the number was much lower in the 20 thousands. Tim Daly with California fish and wildlife says that doesn't necessarily mean the population has increased methods for studying and determining numbers are much improved. And so these numbers we think are far more accurate. That's because of all of you during the pandemic, more people were at home. So bear reports skyrocket 160% in just two years. Graph shows an increase in all areas of human black bear conflict but only 13% of the time. Is there a potential human conflict? The Lake Tahoe Basin is listed as a hotspot. Are in some cases growing up only knowing the, the, the food that they go and get is available in our communities that that's how they've been raised. So they're getting more comfortable coming around us in the northern Sierra fish and wildlife estimates 15,000 bears across 34,000 kilometers. This yellow area on the map. Now they don't track by small regional areas, but the bear League in Holmwood agrees the population is stable and estimates 250 bears living in South Lake Tahoe people lure the bears in with their unsecured garbage with bird feeders. A lot of people deliberately and illegally feed them. Um Now with social media just all over the place, you all, all these videos, uh encounters are not necessarily increasing in the Sierra Devin, Truby ABC. 10 Devin, thank you. Fish and wildlife says they got more than 6000 comments from the public on this bear plan draft. They hope to have the final report by the end of the year.

Channel: ABC10

Views: 1,957

Keywords: abc10, california news, northern california, sacramento news, black bear, califonria bears, california brown bear, california black bear, lake tahoe bears, viral videos of bear

Id: L4jehLsCpXg

Length: 2min 18sec (138 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2024