What began as a Fourth of July stay near Lake Tahoe turned into a dangerous wildlife encounter when a black bear rushed at a man outside a vacation home.
A video of the incident later showed the animal backing off only after the man used bear spray.
What happened?
The trouble started when Sacramento resident Cortlandt Koerwitz's daughter spotted a black bear near the garage of their Lake Tahoe vacation home, per KCRA 3.
Koerwitz took bear spray with him when he stepped outside to check on the situation, but the encounter changed within moments.
Footage obtained by Fox shows him nearing the garage before the bear charges. Once the bear lunged toward Koerwitz, he sprayed it, and the animal quickly turned away and ran off.
Koerwitz told KCRA 3 that bears commonly move through the Lake Tahoe area in search of food and often get into garbage or unlocked cars. What made this episode different, he said, was the level of aggression the bear showed.
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While black bears are much less aggressive than brown bears, they can be drawn closer to people due to unsecured trash cans or other easy food sources. When this happens, danger can arise for both people and the animal.
Luckily, the incident ended without injury.
Why does it matter?
When bears learn that garages, cars, and trash cans can provide a quick meal, they are more likely to return to human spaces and have stressful or risky encounters with people.
In popular vacation destinations such as Lake Tahoe, a steady flow of visitors can mean more trash left behind, more food left in vehicles, and more opportunities for animals to become habituated to people.
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Those encounters can end badly for everyone involved. People can be injured, or in rare cases killed, and property can be damaged, too.
As BBC Future has reported, many wildlife attacks are linked not simply to animal aggression, but to human behavior, habitat overlap, and attractants that bring wild animals into close contact with people.
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