Family of Bears Goes Swimming at Lake Tahoe

A large crowd of people got an unexpected surprise, Tuesday, when a family of black bears went for a dip in Lake Tahoe. The sow and her two cubs have showed up at Pope Beach before, but usually in the quiet hours in the mornings and evenings. 

John Buis and Abbigale Forsman work for Kayak Tahoe, and have seen the bears before.

"She just kind of moseys down with her cubs and they go for a little swim and play in the lake," Buis said. "It's really neat to watch."

The unusual part of the bears' visit was that it happened during a busy time of the day, when the beach was crowded with people.

"It was really neat to see them actually down by the water just hanging out with people," Forsman said. "They were kind of in their own zone though. So it was one of those things where you ask people to keep their distance."

Experts say it is important for people to watch the animals from a distance, especially because sows can be very protective of their cubs.

"That situation is cute and cuddly until it isn't cute and cuddly anymore," Chris Healy, Nevada Department of Wildlife Spokesman said. "All you need is one human, being stupid, getting too close to these bears."

Healy says it is alarming that the bears went to a busy area during the daytime, saying they normally stay out of sight during the heat of the day. Most will be active at night.

"When bears are daytime active, that kind of sends up a little red flag to us that maybe they are acclimated to human beings and to human activity," Healy said.

Doug Howard is the Operations Manager of Tahoe Recreation, part of California Land Management. He says the ongoing drought and the heat of summer may have played a role in the three bears wandering to the beach.

"They're looking for water," Howard said. "It's getting drier up in the mountains and it's their natural habitat. So, they want to go down to the beach, swim, cool off."

Healy says the bears could have also gone to the beach, looking for an easy source of food. Garbage serves as an easy meal, and coolers usually have food or drinks that attract the bears. Forsman says that is exactly what another group of bears were looking for at Kiva Beach, just a few days earlier.

"We had had some bears that were up there, stealing people's food," Forsman said. "They didn't really come down into the water, that time, but they were just out there taking food and then running back into the woods."

Forsman says the Pope Beach bears played in the water for 20-30 minutes before heading back into the woods.  During that time, staff made sure people did their part to stay safe.

"They immediately came down and tried to keep the people away," Howard said. "So the bears, when they came out of the water, they could head back up into the hills."

Bears have been spotted all around the lake, this summer. One bear recently entered a home in Incline Village. A trap has been set but Healy says people have tampered with it, and the bear has not been captured yet.  In June, a male bear was euthanized, after it kept returning to Sand Harbor, where it broke into a cooler in the back of a Jeep.