With hungry bears rising early, Tahoe-area residents put on alert

By Barbara Barte Osborn
Bee Correspondent, The Sacramento Bee
Published: Tuesday, Mar. 30, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 2B
Last Modified: Tuesday, Mar. 30, 2010 – 12:28 am The Lake Tahoe-area bears are up early, and they’re ravenous. “They feel the warmth and come out of their dens, but there’s no natural food for them yet,” said Ann Bryant, executive director of the BEAR League, a Tahoe-area group that educates residents on coexisting with bears. “The grasses, herbs and roots they like are still covered with snow, and there will be more storms,” she said. “So they’re looking for garbage, pet food and bird food – those are the biggest lures – and empty cabins with food in them.” In recent weeks, bears have broken into 15 homes, all unoccupied, in West Lake Tahoe and Alpine Meadows, Bryant said, and “there have been bear sightings everywhere.” … The bears’ early rising is not an anomaly during a warm spring, Bryant said. “For a good 10 years, they’ve been getting up a little earlier each year,” she said. “We used to have more snow and more cold, so it used to be the end of March or later, but then it was the middle of March and now it starts about the first.” …