Bear Seen Sprinting At Skiers And Snowboarders On Crowded Slopes
South Lake Tahoe, California is known for its large bear population. With that said, it's fairly unusual to see one on the slopes.
A skier captured a tense video on December 10th, 2023 of a bear sprinting across the Ridgerun Trail at Heavenly Mountain Resort, CA/NV. See below:
Video originally uploaded to TikTok by @tao7570.
It was a close call, but thankfully nobody (including the bear) was harmed in this brief interaction.
California, and especially the area surrounding Lake Tahoe, is home to large population of Black Bears that sport a "Cinnamon" color. These bears are often confused for grizzlies or "brown bears".
According to the La Brea Tar Pits & Museum, the last known grizzly in California was spotted near Yosemite in 1924. The population was wiped out by hunters after the California Gold Rush began in 1848.
Experts estimate that as many as 10,000 grizzlies once roamed The Golden State.
Nolan Brown, who has been "skiing Heavenly (his) whole life" also took to social media over the weekend to share a video he captured of multiple bears charging through the snow under one of Heavenly's chairlifts.
See below:
Lake Tahoe's bear population has slowly but surely become more domesticated over the years. Bears are known to frequently break into stores, homes, and cars in search of their next meal.
While their fear of humans may be diminishing, Visit Lake Tahoe has published an important list of tips to "Help Keep The Tahoe Bears Wild".
Please consider reading their helpful article if you plan on visiting Lake Tahoe in the future.
Shutterstock/Lisa Parsons
There's on-going jokes amongst Lake Tahoe locals that the bears are just "big raccoons". They're more often treated as pests than bonafide apex predators that pose a danger to humans.
With that said, you won't see me testing my luck anytime soon when it comes to my neighborhood bears. My car is always locked, I have a can of bear spray that I (sometimes) ride my mountain bike with, and I regularly read up bear safety tips.
Call me paranoid, I don't care.
Bears are bears!
Related: Infamous Lake Tahoe Bear 'Hank The Tank' Finally Captured
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