Tahoe's Bear "Problem" Yosemite shows that humans can be trained. The Fresno Bee - September 30, 1999 Two corners of the Sierra yield two very different bear stories. In Lake Tahoe, brazen bears rummage in increasing numbers in search of food. In Yosemite National Park, meanwhile, bear break-ins have declined so far this year by about 70% over totals from 1998. What explains the different behavior of the bears? Don't analyze them. It's the two-legged inhabitants that need the attention - and the retraining. In Yosemite, access by bears to human food is dramatically decreasing. In Tahoe, access to garbage cans, gardens and other irresistible goodies have given the bears too tempting a taste of civilization. In Yosemite, officials have installed 2,000 bear-proof food lockers throughout the park. Volunteers pick apples in a historic valley orchard before they fall to the ground and became bait for bears. The strategy has worked well. There were 438 bear incidents through August of this year in Yosemite. Last year's total was 1,127. That's quite a success story. Tahoe, meanwhile, has suffered a series of frightening incidents with increasingly brazen bears. A game warden and sheriff's deputy had little choice but to kill one bear last month after it broke into a Kings Beach home, forcing the family to escape through a window. Worse, the family (which had been careful about eliminating outside food sources) then received harassing phone calls from animal rights zealots angry that law enforcement shot the bear. There will be more shootings of Tahoe bears, but we hope not of the lethal variety. The El Dorado County Sheriff's Department plans to shoot the bears with rubber shotgun rounds. The bears feel pain, yet are not seriously injured. Based on the weaponry's track record in the Mammoth Lakes area, this may discourage bears. Perhaps. But for how long? The bear's offspring certainly will be tempted to wander back toward civilization, and will return if there is ample food outside. To coexist with the Sierra's natural inhabitants, humans can't duplicate the subdivision lifestyle of the flats. They must respect the habits of the bears. Or both will suffer the consequences.