No bears turn up at first Bear Fest

“If this house is a shockin’, don’t come knockin’” is the message that electrified door mats are designed to send bears trying to cadge a meal.

The mats are just part of a home system designed to keep bears from checking out what’s in your fridge, according to Joseph and Kelsy Pollard, who were working the Bear Busters booth at the first Bear Fest at Spooner Lake State Park.

“It’s the exact opposite of the doorbell,” Joseph said. “It’s not a welcome home mat. It gives the bear a negative association with the home, so it doesn’t enter in search for food.”

Joseph said the company has installed around 4,000 mats across the Tahoe Basin.

“It doesn’t cause the bear any physical harm,” he said. “It’s a good long-term solution. Bears can face negative consequences if they do enter a house.”

That was a key message for more than two-dozen people, who listened as Nevada Department of Wildlife biologists Becca Carniello and Carl Lackey spoke about Karelian bear dogs.

As Carniello spoke, Banjo received pats and scritches from members of the audience as Lackey walked him through the amphitheater.

“The dogs live with us,” Carniello said. “We own the dogs, but the department is very supportive of the project with the bears.”

There are between 600 and 700 black bears in the state, most of which turned up in the last half-century.

DNA tests have shown the bear are related to those who lived in the Sierra and migrated to the Silver State as their numbers increased.

“Historically, we started getting sightings from the 1980s to now and they continue to increase over time,” Carniello said.

But with both the population of bears and people rising at the same time, the number of encounters between the two have increased.

“We catch bears for a couple of reasons,” she said. “It’s either for research or human bear conflicts, mainly because people have allowed bears access to food. If people allow bears access to food there’s a lot of calories for them. Our food is very, very tasty to them and it’s very rewarding.”

That’s where the bear dogs come in.

“Mainly use these bear dogs for hazing,” Carniello said. “When we release that bear, we give the bear a little bit of a head start and let the dogs pursue it. Sometimes they are going to get a bite on their butt. All of that is designed to give them a negative association with people instead of a positive one.”

Bears caught by the department receive three tags in their ears, one main identifier, another that links to their veterinary records and a third that says how long since the last time they were tranquilized.

“After we’ve captured the bear and tagged it, most likely we’re going to do an onsite release, but obviously that’s not always possible,” she said. “We’ve caught black bears in downtown Reno, and it’s obviously not possible to do an onsite release there. In that case, we go as close as possible to the nearest open bear habitat,” she said.

Black bears will begin looking for more food as winter approaches to bulk up for hibernation.

However, bears that have been habituated to surviving off garbage may end up not going to sleep for the winter due to the availability of food.

State Parks Recreation Coordinator Cassie Hughes said the park was fairly busy most of the day, with several people taking advantage of free admission on National Public Lands Day.