Bear comes through kitchen window

Debbie Yates had an unusual intruder in her boyfriend's house at Cascade Shores on Monday morning. As she was getting ready to go to work - Yates is a business advisor at the Nevada County Superintendent of Schools Office - Yates heard a commotion and thought the pet cats were knocking things off. As the noise got louder, she finally went to the see what the raucous was about.

"I came around the corner and into the kitchen and instead of seeing two cats on the counter, I saw a big brown bear, a third of the way coming in through the kitchen window," Yates said. "My instincts kicked in and I raised my hands and yelled, 'Get out! Get out!' And lucky for me, it did."

A misshapen tear in the shiny wire mesh screen just inches below the white-lace valance and a few nail marks and wood shavings on the window frame stand as testimony to the incident. What is surprising is how little a space the bear was trying to squeeze through, given that the window is only about a foot wide.

This is not the first time Yates and her boyfriend, Kevin O'Conner, have had problem with bears on their property. This, however, is the first sighting they have had this year and the first time ever that a bear has tried to break into the house.

"I've had numerous encounters with bears," O'Conner said. "I've tried to scare them with my handgun but they wouldn't budge. They aren't afraid of it at all. I was 15 to 20 feet away from them. We've been having two or three encounters a year."

The bears - as in most cases - usually rummage through the garbage cans at O'Conner's residence, often ripping apart the door of the shed in which the cans are kept, O'Conner said.

Apparently O'Conner has tried using ammonia - the common bear repellent recommended by the California Department of Fish and Game - but it has failed to keep the bears away.

"I once soaked my shed with ammonia and hung open bottles of ammonia over the door," O'Conner said. "They tore the door down and got to the garbage cans. There was plenty of ammonia out there, but they still got to a can and ripped it off. They spilled the garbage over the hillside.

"I'm not the only one. They've been in people's garbage out here."

O'Conner, who is a steel building contractor, now keeps his garbage inside a small metal building near his wooden shed. The bears have not broken into that as yet, he said.

According to both Yates and O'Conner, what may have brought the bear to the kitchen was the smell of cat food that was on the floor just below the kitchen window. They had left the windows open for some fresh air during the heat wave on Sunday evening.

The bear brochure on the Web site of the Department of Fish and Game advises, among other things, to keep pet food in a place where its smell won't attract bears.

"Generally, it is the garbage that is the No. 1 attractant of bears to urban areas," said Patrick Foy, biologist and spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Game. "It seems they (Yates and O'Conner) are trying to take aggressive steps to prevent attracting bears by taking care of their garbage - they are storing the garbage in the shed and cleaning it with ammonia. The only step that they can take beyond what they are doing is to buy a bear-proof garbage can."

Foy said the bear population in California has reached an unprecedented high at present.

"Lots of different things combine to create a good habitat for bears," he said. "We've been out of a drought since the past 10 years and we've had good habitat conditions as a result. We've had average to above-average rainfall for the last 10 years.

"The bear problem is not specific to Nevada City."

Statistics agree with Foy's opinion. The number of depredation permits - which legally allow people to kill a bear - issued in Nevada County has increased since 1990, according to data available on the California Department of Fish and Game Web site. The maximum number of permits, 23, was issued in 1998. The second and third highest number of permits was issued in 1995 (13 permits) and 2003 (12 permits).

O'Conner, who has owned his property in Cascade Shores for the past six years, said it was unusual for him to have a bear incident so early in summer. He usually has problems with bears later in the season and in early fall.

In elevations higher than Nevada County, bears often create problems in springtime when they are coming out of hibernation and also in the fall when they are trying to fatten up to make it through the winter, Foy said.

"The number of bear incidents we've been having in Nevada County this year is not out of the ordinary," he added.

There have been three bear incidents in the past week, said Sheriff Keith Royal at the Nevada County Sheriff's Office.

"One was off Lime Kiln, one was at La Barr Meadows Road near McKnight, and the third one was in the Highway 174 and Orchard Springs area," Royal said. "In a couple of them (occurrences), the bear actually came up to the porch. And in one of them, the bear was aggressive toward the glass door (though it did not break in)."

O'Conner, however, is pretty sure of his line of action.

"If I catch a bear inside the house the next time, I'll shoot it," Conner said. "I talked about it with the game warden at the California Department of Fish and Game, and she said I could."

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To contact staff writer Soumitro Sen, e-mail at soumitros@theunion.com or call 477-4229.

Tips to prevent attracting bears to one's property:

• Store garbage in bear-proof containers, or store garbage in your garage until it is picked up.

• Keep food indoors or in airtight and odor-free containers.

• Put away picnic leftovers; clean barbecue grills.

• Keep pet food inside and bird feeders away.

• Pick up fallen tree fruit as soon as possible, or protect fruit trees with electric fencing.

• Remove cosmetic fragrances and other attractants, including bird feeders and compost piles.

For more information, visit http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/bear.html



Source: California Department of Fish and Game.