In California, residents had a surprise when spring arrived: after hearing snoring all winter long, they discovered that a family of bears was living under their house.
Here is a story that seems straight out of a tale by the Brothers Grimm and is reminiscent of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In California, residents have experienced a phenomenon that is surprising to say the least.
Residents have spent all winter hearing snoring-like noises coming from their homes. However, these noise disturbances were not heard by the neighbors, and the inhabitants were therefore not taken seriously.
When spring arrived, the inhabitants of the house discovered what was causing so much noise: a family of five bears hibernated under their house for several months. This story was revealed on the Facebook page of the Bear League, a non-profit organization that aims to help people live in harmony with bears.
Throughout the winter, a mother bear and her four little cubs hibernated under the house. According to the Bear League, the female gave birth to three cubs before adopting one nine months later. Adoption among bears is very rare, but this event happened after the cub’s birth mother was hit by a car.
Upon entering hibernation, the bear headed into a crawl space opening with her four cubs and the little family settled down to spend the winter. Once locals discovered bears were living under their home, they called the Bear League in an attempt to get them out.
“The locals didn’t realize there were five bears under their house until we arrived and told the bears to come out. We counted five when locals thought it was a single very noisy bear ,” the organization said.
The Bear League stepped in to scare away the bears, while keeping them and the locals safe. For this, they managed to scare the family into believing that they were no longer safe under the house, to force them to leave. This isn’t the first time this kind of cohabitation has happened in California. Every winter, between 100 and 150 bears try to sneak under houses to hibernate.
“People really need to make sure their crawlspace openings are closed and secure before bears come inside, especially in the fall when they’re looking for hibernation dens,” explained Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League.
Once the little bear family has left, the inhabitants have installed an electric barrier that will deliver a small harmless shock to any bear that tries to enter through the crawl space.
