WATCH: Calif. 7-Eleven Employee Gets Surprised by Bear Entering Store

WATCH: Calif. 7-Eleven Employee Gets Surprised by Bear Entering Store

Bear's gotta eat!

An Olympic Valley, California, 7-Eleven employee was recently surprised by a large brown bear who walked right into the store, seemingly looking for a snack.

Rachelle Ducusin captured the moment on her phone while simultaneously trying to scare the four-legged creature out of the store, which is located on the northeast side of Lake Tahoe.

In the video, the bear walks into the convenience store after opening the door with its paw. Ducusin screams at the bear in an attempt to scare it off — but the bear appears unfazed, even activating the hand sanitizer dispenser as it lumbers through the entrance.

"Oh my goodness. He knows how to open it," Ducusin says in the footage as the bear walks in, before repeatedly shouting, "Hey, stop!" at the animal.

Bear Enters 7-Eleven
Bear Enters 7-Eleven

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Before the bear boldly entered the 7-Eleven, it had been rummaging through the store's trash cans. She said that it had charged at her twice when she had attempted to scare it off, before seeking refuge inside.

She called 911, and emergency responders arrived and shot at the bear with rubber bullets.

Ducusin said that the bear returned yet again, continuing its search through the trash cans, but didn't attempt to get back inside.

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The bear had a yellow tag on his ear, signaling that it is part of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's efforts in recent years to trap, tag and haze as many bears in the Tahoe area as possible. The program's aim is to identify individual bears and build up a genetic database to better track and study the bears and their behaviors.

CDFW regional manager Kevin Thomas told SF Gate that entering a store is "not typical of wild bears," but rather a "learned behavior from pursuing human food sources rather than foraging in the wild."

"Lake Tahoe has a robust bear population and they often interact with homes and businesses in search of food," Thomas said. "Once they get a taste of human food it can be difficult to reverse the behavior. Part of the trap/tag/haze effort we operate is to try and recondition those bears to pursue natural food sources."

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Fall is an especially active time for bears as they prepare for the leaner winter months.

"This is a time of year when Tahoe bears are undergoing a physiological change," CDFW information officer Peter Tira told SF Gate.

"They are in eating overdrive, fattening up for winter and hibernation," Tira said. "It's nature's way of preparing them for winter. We're seeing lots of bears breaking into cars. Folks have to be vigilant on their properties, campsites and cars. It's a time when bears are out actively out foraging aggressively."

Ducusin's footage is the latest California bear incident to go viral.

In August, TikTok user Tisha Campbell captured footage of a 125-lb. bear roaming the aisles of a Ralph's in the Los Angeles suburb of Porter Ranch, California. In August 2021, a large bear was spotted grabbing a bag of chips from a Safeway in Kings Beach, California.