Bearing the suspense for new summer

It doesn't surprise us that Carson Valley generated more than a quarter of the nuisance bear calls handled by the Nevada Department of Wildlife last year.

The state received a record 1,531 bear calls last year. The year before there were 350.

If someone wasn't capturing a bear on camera wandering through a neighborhood or attacking a garbage can, Nevada Wildlife Biologist Carl Lackey was catching one in a trap.

A simple calculation reveals that Carson Valley residents were responsible for more than 400 of those calls, or one for every 22 people in the towns of Gardnerville, Minden and Genoa.

It's clear that neither the people, nor the bears were prepared for the onslaught that occurred last summer.

As a result, Douglas County became the first in Nevada to extend an ordinance encouraging residents living outside the Tahoe basin to bear-proof their garbage.

We don't know what this bear season will bring. At this time last year we were already reporting our first major bear incident. This year has been pretty quiet, so far.

There's always the possibility we've convinced the bears that Carson Valley is a mighty unfriendly little place. Only time will tell.