The recent killing of a young black bear by a landowner near Lake Tahoe has angered residents, including neighbors who question the man's story.
The fatal shooting occurred around 1:30 p.m. on Memorial Day in an unincorporated El Dorado County neighborhood, about 2 miles south of the Lake Tahoe airport.
Steve Gonzalez, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the man told investigators he was in his living room with his dog when a bear entered the house.
“He tried to get up and scare the bear away by yelling at it and waving his arm, but the bear was acting in a threatening manner,” Gonzalez said. “He then retrieved the rifle that was near him and shot the bear twice.”
A California Fish and Wildlife director investigated the killing of the young bear and no charges were filed.
(Bogdan Yamkovenko)
He said the injured bear ran away and climbed a tree, but fell to the ground due to its injuries.
“The man approached the bear, saw that it was suffering and humanely euthanized it,” González said. The man was not injured.
Gonzalez said a Fish and Wildlife warden investigated the shooting and no charges were filed.
But the killing of the young bear has angered some residents, including Ann Bryant, director of the Bear League, a nonprofit organization based in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
He said two league members were sent to the neighborhood to document what happened after receiving a call from a distraught neighbor who had witnessed the shooting.
Bryant said team members learned from neighbors that the bear was never fully inside the home and that the homeowner had previously shot another bear.
She said team members tried to talk to the director but were mostly ignored. The shooting occurred, she noted, at a time of year when young bears are separated from their mothers and learn to live on their own.
When she learned that the principal concluded the shooting was self-defense and did not press criminal charges, she was furious.
“They believe him and not all the neighbors who saw him, know him and heard his discussions about how he feels about the bears and know about the other killings,” he said. “It's disappointing that the wildlife department turns a blind eye.”
Gonzalez said he didn't know if the homeowner had been involved in other bear shootings.
A neighbor who witnessed the shooting, Bogdan Yamkovenko, 43, said the small bear had spent most of the day in the neighborhood. He said it was around 1:30 pm when he noticed the bear coming down from a tree where he was taking a nap.
At the time, Yamkovenko was standing on the back porch of his house when he noticed the bear standing by his neighbor's back door. He said he tried to make noises using his grill but the bear didn't react.
Shortly after, he saw the bear poke its head inside the neighbor's house, suggesting the door was either half open or fully open.
“He went little by little, going deeper and deeper, but he never got to the bottom,” he said. “She always wears a part of the bear.”
Then he saw the bear take a step back, turn around, run away, and climb the tree he had been sleeping in earlier.
“That's when I heard the first shot,” he said.
Yamkovenko ran to his neighbor's house, hoping he would stop shooting. As he circled his neighbor's house, he heard a second gunshot.
When Yamkovenko reached his neighbor, he told him to stop shooting and that the Department of Fish and Wildlife would take care of the bear.
“He said, 'No, I need to put him out of his misery.'”
Yamkovenko said the three shots he heard occurred outside, but when the director came to talk to him, he was told that the neighbor said he had shot four times.
The director “told us that something didn't add up in the neighbor's story because the neighbor kept saying there were four gunshots and that he shot the bear inside the house,” Yamkovenko said.
When he learned that the case was closed, Yamkovenko called the director, furious. He said the director has not called him back.
Gonzalez said he had heard claims that the bear was not inside the house, but he defended the warden's findings.
“He is a trained officer, a state police officer and he has sworn to carry out his duties,” González said of the director. “And you know, the people who work for Fish and Wildlife are dedicated to preserving wildlife for future generations.
“I trust him. We trust him, we have a lot of trust in him,” he added. “He went out to investigate it personally and discovered that what the owner said was true and decided there was no need to go further.”
Bryant said he will continue to investigate the matter until there is justice for the bear.
