By Laura Nesbitt And Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
Bears are starting to turn up, with sightings at a number of places in the East Mountains and Estancia Valley.
A small bear wandered into Eastview Drip Irrigation in the morning of June 18, according to Dan Williams, spokesman for the state Department of Game and Fish.
“He was the first customer of the day, and he was a doozy,” said Rick Lopez, general manager of the Estancia store.
The roughly 1½-year-old bear weighed about 120 pounds and was probably setting out on its own for the first time.
“That's about the time that their mothers kick them out. He was probably trying to find his place in the world,” Williams said.
When the game and fish officers arrived, the bear was lying inside a bay door asleep.
“He was probably just tired and hot,” Williams said.
Officers trained to check the health of bears before releasing them into the wilderness shot the bear with a tranquilizer gun, loaded him into their vehicle and drove him to an area south of Thoreau.
The bear gave them no trouble, and no one was hurt.
A bear also climbed into an open window of a house in Tijeras on June 18 about 4:30 a.m.
The rummaging of the bear awoke the father of the household, who ran downstairs and opened the front door, and the bear ran out, Williams said.
There were children in the home, and no one was injured.
Officers from game and fish are trying to catch the bear, especially because there were children present, and they have set traps, Williams said. He also said the bear's size was unknown. Williams cautioned residents against feeding any wildlife.
“This is bear country, and people have moved in,” Williams said.
Bears have also been seen prowling around a restaurant in bear country, the High Finance Restaurant and Tavern, near the upper terminal of the Sandia Peak Tramway.
James Cole, a host at the restaurant for two years, said he's seen paw prints on the windows and caught a glimpse of bears, but never gotten a good view. He has observed the customers' reactions, though.
“You have mixed reactions. Some people go walk outside and take pictures of them; some people won't leave the restaurant until they know the bear is gone,” he said. “I don't really think anything of it; I just kind of do my job.”
Cole said the restaurant tries to have all its trash hauled off by sunset, a prime time for bears to forage, but some of the employees still put a few items in the garbage cans at night.
Jay Blackwood, assistant manager of the tramway, said his company has tried to reduce human-bear interaction by hauling all the trash down daily.
“We kind of look at it as it's their home,” said Blackwood. “We do have signs around the area.”
Blackwood said there was a report of hikers seeing a bear on Monday, but added that this time of year there are a lot of yearlings around.
He said the Department of Game and Fish set a trap with doughnuts and other food to catch the bears lurking around the High Finance.
Jan Hayes, founder of the bear-awareness and wildlife-preservation group Sandia Mountain Bear Watch, said the High Finance has had trouble with bears in the past.
“It's built right in the middle of bear country,” she said. “They should go all-out to have an incredibly bear-proofed, clean establishment. … They've got a safety issue there for people, and they've got a safety issue there for bears.”
She said two members of her group, Don and Mina Carnicom, also recently spotted a yearling near their property. The couple, who live near the Sandia Crest Highway, frightened the bear away in the hopes it would learn to stay away from humans. They reported the bear to be in average condition for a yearling.
“That's always a kind of a pathetic time for them,” Hayes said. “They're just kind of at loose ends, trying to make it on their own.”
She said only about half the cubs make it for a year on their own, and things don't get much better from there.
About 30 percent make it to adulthood, and those that are caught and relocated are put at an even greater disadvantage, she said.
“People think, 'Well, they can just haul them out of here and everything will be OK,'” Hayes said. “Well, not for the bear.”
She added that, based on a calculation of the number of bears in the forest and the acreage burned by the Trigo Fire, three or four bears lost their habitat.
As part of an ongoing effort to keep bears from running into humans, Hayes will be taking a group of volunteers into camp grounds to spray stencils warning people to clean up after themselves.
As of June 10, people leaving food unattended, store it improperly or leave garbage outside of bear-proof garbage cans can be fined $5,000, and the fines may be $10,000 for organizations.
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