A mother bear and her two 8-month-old cubs were captured in a northeast Carson City neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon after spending the morning sleeping in a backyard pine tree.
"It's just so doggone dry right now, there are no berries, nothing for them to eat or drink. Backyards have apple trees and bird feeders and urban ponds. Bears never had it so good," said Carl Lackey, biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
Lackey was called out to the neighborhood just south of Winnie Lane about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning after the bears were spotted by Mandy Henningsen in her backyard.
"They climbed up in a 30-foot pine and slept for about four hours," Henningsen said.
"They had real sweet faces."
When Lackey arrived about 2 p.m., the furry trio had moved to a juniper bush at 1730 Chase Drive. With the help of Carson City deputies Dan Ochsenschlager, Dean Williams and Charles Stetler, the biologist was able shoot the 120-pound mother bear and her two male cubs with blow darts to sedate them.
Homeowner Kelly Figueroa was clueless about why officers were in her front yard.
Deputies had told her to stay inside, and when they had safely sedated the animals, they told her she could come out.
"Whose dog is that?" She asked, pointing at the sleeping lumps on her grass.
"Those are bears," someone said. Figueroa looked shocked and walked back into her house. Moments later, she emerged with a camera.
Her neighbors had the same reaction.
While Lackey and biologist Thad Heater, tagged, tattooed, drew vials of blood and plucked hairs from their snoozing bounty, neighbors gathered on the lawn.
"This makes Goldilocks seem a little more realistic," one woman said as she took photographs.
Sixth-grader Nicole Vairo and her mother, Cathy, also stood by with their camera.
Though Nicole hopes to work with dolphins when she grows up, the sight of the bears made her smile.
Lackey said the bears would be taken to a trap in Gardnerville where they would be kept overnight and released this morning somewhere in the Carson Range.
Passerby Tobi Boone said it was sweet how tenderly the biologists and deputies treated the sleeping creatures.
"I think it's great that they didn't hurt them. They've been very gentle, very good to them," she said.
Lackey said he's captured about 50 bears this year. These were the first for Carson City.
"It's exciting to catch bears you've never seen before, both from a management perspective and for the biological data," Lackey said. "It's like Christmas."
