We’ve heard or read about finding treasures and fossils hidden under the houses but now, imagine finding bears. A family in California ignored strange noises that sounded like snoring; only to discover that five bears had hibernated under their house during the cold season.
The Bear League is a non-profit organization. It is dedicated to preserving bear habitat and assisting bears in trouble in the state’s Lake Tahoe basin. The NGO recalled the family’s incredible story last week. The group explained how one mother bear chose to spend the winter in the crawl space beneath a local house. She was with three of her own pups and an adopted orphan.
“It was a home where people lived, and they thought they heard some odd rumbling, snoring-like noises; but ignored it because it simply didn’t make sense and the neighbors said they were imagining it because they didn’t hear anything,” the Bear League said in a Facebook post. It added: “The bear family awoke and prepared to exit, and the people in the house could no longer deny there was probably a bear under the house.”
Every winter 100 to 150 bears try to hibernate under residences in the Lake Tahoe area
Bear League Executive Director Ann Bryant told HuffPost that the process of getting the bears to vacate the area entailed “being territorial and scary; hereby making the bear believe it’s not going to be safe there anymore.” Bryant said volunteers never harm bears physically but “sometimes we do hurt their feelings.”
Bryant said, “an electrical barrier” is made in the crawl space. It is to give any bears attempting to enter a minor jolt. She added, that 100 to 150 bears try to hibernate under residences in the Lake Tahoe area, but the problem is easily solvable.
“People really need to make sure their crawl space openings are closed and secured before bears go inside; especially in the fall when they are looking for hibernation dens,”
