Lured by Urge for Bedtime Snacks, Bears Raid Cities

Some days, the saying goes, you eat the bear. And some days, the bear eats you. But these days, the bear may just tear down your door, knock over your refrigerator and help himself to a carton of eggs, a pound of bacon and a bottle of wine.

That’s the scene a flabbergasted homeowner in Evergreen, Colo., witnessed recently. Similarly, a woman in Los Alamos, N.M., came home one evening to find that a 275-pound bear had toppled the refrigerator and gorged on apple pie. He was shot by rangers when he came back for seconds three hours later.

Such close encounters of the hairy kind have become surprisingly common this fall as drought conditions in the foothills of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado turn record numbers of black bears into urban foragers.

While bears are occasionally spotted in uncrowded residential areas of California, hundreds of bears have been sighted lately in the metropolitan areas, suburbs and outskirts of Albuquerque, Denver and Tucson.

Many have been spotted lumbering through city streets, drinking from suburban swimming pools and feasting on any goodies or garbage within paw’s reach as they try to fatten up before hibernating next month.

Black bears rarely attack humans, wildlife experts say, and so far bear confrontations have resulted in only a few minor injuries to people. But dozens of the wandering bears have been killed by cars, angry ranchers or worried animal control officers.

“They’re like drug addicts,” said Gerry Perry, regional supervisor of the Arizona Department of Game and Fish in Tucson. “Once they get hooked on food from garbage cans, or food that’s tainted by human scent, there’s no way to make them stop.”

The trend sometimes pits wildlife officials against local animal lovers as the latter try to “save” the bears from what biologists insist is simply hunger and not starvation.

Passions also flared after a sow tranquilized by animal control officers in downtown Albuquerque earlier this summer hit an electrical transformer as she fell off a power pole in a drugged stupor. The bear was severely burned, but survived and was reunited with the cub she had come looking for.

The pair remain at the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque, and may be flown to an Oregon wildlife rehabilitation refuge for the winter.

After the power pole incident, the Albuquerque Animal Humane Assn. announced that it would fly a helicopter over the parched foothills and drop 10,000 pounds of dog food for the hungry bears. They scotched the idea when told special permits and $300,000 in liability insurance would be needed.

“But the bears are getting more food than they would have if we’d been given permission to feed them,” said Thelma Evans, president of the humane association.

“Hiking clubs and irate citizens have been hauling it up the mountain,” she said, adding that “the people who have been going up there say all the food is gone and all they see is bear droppings.”

Biologists say feeding the bears is a dangerous solution.

“What gets to be a problem if people feed them, is that the bears figure out humans are a good source of food,” said bear expert Al LeCount, a biologist with the Arizona Department of Game and Fish.

“They start thinking: ‘Hey, these people aren’t as mean and tough as I thought they were,’ and they become conditioned,” LeCount said. “If you leave food out for them, you’re just about signing that bear’s death warrant.”

After the apple pie-loving bear in Los Alamos was destroyed, authorities learned that neighbors had been feeding it for several nights, said Scott Brown, spokesman for the state Department of Game and Fish.

“We’ve had 22 bears wandering through business and residential areas so far,” Brown said. “Hummingbird feeders, beehives, fruit that’s fallen off backyard trees--they’re attracted by anything sweet.”

Several communities have had to pass ordinances this summer making it illegal to leave out food or trash either intentionally or carelessly in a way that might lure bears.

Not all bears are as shy toward humans as the experts say.

In Grants, N.M., a 300-pound bear perched on a rock in the middle of town one afternoon and posed for residents who snapped his picture.

LeCount said an extremely dry summer effectively wiped out the crops of nuts and berries the bears feed on this time of year.

“Bears make up three-fourths of their diet on vegetative material,” he said. “This is the first year I’ve seen complete food failure of vegetatives.”

He said the bears were relying more on insects and making “bigger circles” around their natural habitat in search of food, sometimes wandering 150 miles from home.

Because the bears will be entering their dens thinner than they normally are, their reproductive systems may fail to implant the eggs held in suspension since breeding last spring, LeCount said.

Most prodigal bears either eventually wander off on their own or are captured and relocated by wildlife officials.

Relocation sometimes triggers interstate games of pass-the-bear.

When Arizona officials released a radio-collared bear captured near the border with New Mexico, the exile turned up six weeks later for an all-you-can-eat buffet at a New Mexico state fish hatchery.

“They moved him again,” said Gerry Perry, Arizona’s regional supervisor. “Now it may be our turn.”

When they amble into densely populated areas, though, the bears run a high risk of being destroyed.

Colorado has the highest toll of urban bear deaths, with 11 killed the past summer.

Six bears were shot by the Colorado Division of Wildlife, three were shot by frightened citizens, one was struck by a car and “one committed suicide--he either jumped or fell off a cliff,” said spokesman Todd Malmsbury of the Division of Wildlife.

He said wildlife officials killed the six bears because tranquilizer darts can cause erratic behavior and the bears had ventured into densely populated areas.

“If a large bear is right in the middle of a residential area, using a tranquilizer is not nearly as quick or easy as it looks on ‘Wild Kingdom,’ ” Malmsbury said. “It takes five or 10 minutes for the drug to take effect, and a bear can do a lot of damage in 10 minutes.

“And frankly, tranquilizers kill animals a lot more than people realize. You don’t see the outtakes of ‘Wild Kingdom.’ ”

Children were kept inside an elementary school in suburban Denver one day last week while authorities captured a young bear nearby. Another bear escaped after raiding a bee farm and sucking the honey from 70 hives, causing an estimated $8,000 in damage.

“One bear up in Evergreen broke down a door, knocked over the fridge, ate some eggs, found some bacon, then somehow opened a bottle of wine and drank it,” Malmsbury said. “I’d love to know what kind it was. I hope it was a fine red or Cabernet.”

Whatever the vintage, the bear apparently liked it. A second Evergreen home raided by a bear was also missing a bottle, Malmsbury said.

“Another bear broke into a condo with a woman inside,” he said. “The bears are developing some clearly dangerous habits.”

Similar reports have come from California this fall. Recently, for instance, a Lake Tahoe resident was startled to see a peeping tom bear looking into his window. In Southern California, there have been reports of bears breaking into summer homes.

Still, Donald Koch, who coordinates California’s bear program for the state Department of Fish and Game, said that despite the fact that California is in the third year of a drought, the state’s bear problem this year is no worse than usual.

In fact, he said, the number of permits issued to legally kill bears causing damage to private property is running behind last year’s figure. In 1988, California issued 189 such permits, compared to 123 as of Oct. 1 this year.

Wildlife officials in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado have stepped up efforts to educate the public, using brochures, posters and television announcements to remind people not to feed or approach the bears.

“That’s the biggest problem,” said Malmsbury, “encouraging people to be smarter than the average bear.”

Campgrounds have also become favorite bear buffets, with reports of the animals terrorizing cookouts and snatching steaks right off grills. A Denver woman needed several stitches to close a gash in her head after a bear charged into her tent to get at the food left there.

A teen-age boy in New Mexico suffered a cut foot when a bear slashed his aluminum-sided camper truck.

In Arizona, the remote Navajo Reservation has had more than 100 complaints about bears in neighborhoods this summer, and ranchers have complained about sheep being slaughtered.

Coping with the brazen bears poses a special problem there because of spiritual beliefs.

“In the Navajo religion, it is a taboo to kill a bear or touch any part of a bear, dead or alive,” said Sam Billiman, whose dogs treed a bear at his home on the reservation.

Wildlife officers lassoed the animal and dragged it away.

Road kills are also increasing as bears cross highways and busy boulevards.

“On one 20-mile stretch of the interstate, nine bears have been hit this summer,” said Perry, the Arizona regional wildlife supervisor in Tucson.

While the current bear boom is likely to end around the first week of November when the animals trundle back to the hills for their winter nap, rangers fear that next spring could see even worse problems.

If winter brings another drought, warned Al LeCount, the bears won’t be able to find the tender green grasses they feed on when they emerge from their dens.

“At that point,” he said, “we could see some very desperate bears.”

Times environmental writer Larry Stammer in Los Angeles and researcher Ann Rovin in Denver also contributed to this story.