The Nevada Department of Wildlife was forced to put down a young black bear at Lake Tahoe for bad behavior last week, officials report.
In late August, the department had to put down two bears within one week for breaking into homes and stealing trash. This latest incident marks the third time an offspring of a notoriously bad bear from the lake had to be euthanized for being a threat to the public, reports Tech Times.
The mother of the troublesome cubs is a 19-year-old black bear famous in Lake Tahoe for her long history of bad behavior. Her tendency to get into trouble is a character trait experts think she could have passed on to her offspring.
The argument of nature vs nurture is not a new debate in the scientific community, but this bear and her cubs certainly raise some interesting questions concerning the issue.
The cubs could be acting out as part of their genetic tendency to behave badly, or simply reacting to people leaving garbage within tempting reach of the bears.
Mama bear, known by her tag number Green 108, has been captured several times and has a habit of getting into trash in the area, reports CBS.
Wildlife biologist Carl Lackey refers to the bear as a “chronic, nuisance-type bear.”
She’s just kind of a chronic, nuisance-type bear. She’s always been getting into trash, always been in the same area. We’ve captured several litters of hers. We’ve captured her several times.
Green 108 was first captured in Tahoe in 2004, when she was tagged and released. She has been trapped four more times since, the most recent being July 2012.
Lackey makes it clear that bears aren’t euthanized just for getting into trash, but when that “conflict behavior escalates from tipping over trash cans to breaking into homes,” that’s when the bears have to be put down.
We don’t euthanize bears just for getting in trash when that’s all they’re doing. But that conflict behavior escalates from tipping over trash cans to breaking into homes, and that’s when we have to euthanize them.
