Incidents of wild bears breaking into private homes are not uncommon in the United States, and recently another such event occurred in California. The homeowner reported that the uninvited black bear was quite large, ate a considerable amount of food, and had a particular liking for sugar.
According to KABC Television, this incident took place on the morning of August 15 in Kern County, California. A black bear entered the home of local resident Bridget Conley and stayed there for almost an hour. Fortunately, no one was home at the time.
Conley said that at 6:15 a.m. that morning, she began receiving alerts from her security cameras indicating an uninvited guest had entered her house, located in a community within the Los Padres National Forest. She told the TV station, "It's huge. This bear is the biggest we've ever seen… really big."
Security footage showed the bear kicking open the door and coming inside. After a while, it was seen leaving with a bag of potato chips. Conley mentioned that her house contained plenty of snacks. After the bear got in, it rummaged through her belongings, picking out whatever it wanted to eat, then coming out to eat and going back inside repeatedly.
The bear first ate most of the dog food, then checked the refrigerator and freezer. Conley said she was grateful not to be home at the time and discovered the bear's fondness for sugar. "It grabbed some raw sugar and dog food. We think it also took a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, which I guess it mistook for syrup because it threw it away. It didn't like that," she said.
She added that she spent several hours cleaning up afterwards. Interestingly, she found one item that the bear left behind. She laughed, "It left the vodka." Compared to other black bears, this one was quite "polite," only staying in her house for about an hour.
California Black Bears Population and Behavior
Data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife shows that the population of black bears in California has steadily increased over the past few decades. The number of black bears has grown from an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 in the 1980s to approximately 25,000 to 30,000 today, and this is considered a conservative estimate.
Black bears have a diverse diet that includes plants, insects, nuts, berries, and essentially anything they consider edible, such as garbage found in dumpsters. When natural food sources are scarce in their habitat, black bears actively search for alternative food and may even venture into human residential areas to scavenge.
