Black bear binges inside Teton Valley house - East Idaho News
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Black bear binges inside Teton Valley house

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TETONIA — Creed Lasson was almost home from an afternoon of dirt biking when he heard a knocking noise on one of the windows.

“I thought it was my sisters just messing around,” he said. “I walked up and went, holy crap—that’s a bear!”

The cinnamon colored black bear was hitting the glass of the window to try and get out.

Lasson, who is 18, called in for some help.

“My uncle came up and brought his gun. We went inside to try and open some doors to let it out,” he said. “By the time we did that, it had already busted through a screen window.”

Luckily the bear did not cause too much damage, he told the Teton Valley News.

“He tore down three sets of blinds, ate a bunch of food from our pantry and went through our garbage—that’s about it,” Lasson recounted.

According to Lasson, the bear ate some cake and brownie mix, hashbrowns that had been left on the stove, and a lot of garbage.

“The weirdest thing he ate was 10 or 15 candy canes,” Lasson said. “He ate the wrappers and everything.”

Lasson’s family called Fish and Game.

“They set up a live trap and they told me if he comes back you can shoot him because he’s been causing trouble,” Lasson said. “The next day around the same time we saw him coming.”

Lasson said the bear circled the house looking for a way in.

Tran Bear02
Courtesy Teton Valley News

“I went out to shoot him, but my gun jammed and he went around the back of the house and smelled the bait for the trap,” he remembered.

Lasson leaves on his Mormon mission this week for Houston, Texas, said the incident will stick with him.

“It was kind of more shocking than anything,” he said. “Looking in my window and seeing a bear.”

The story did not end so happily for the bear, which was euthanized by Idaho Fish and Game.

“If I had any hair, I’d be pulling it out,” said Idaho Fish and Game conservation officer Rob Howe. “It frustrates me as someone who is tasked with protecting the resource to have to remove part of it.”

Howe says there are multiple bears in the Badger Creek region that have become accustomed to humans.

“We are having a very active black bear summer,” he said “It’s probably due to a number of factors. It’s been a long, hard winter with lots of snow. Hunters had a hard time getting out in the spring, and there are more houses in bear country.”

Howe explained that for the bears, getting used to humans and their food is a gradual process.

“I guarantee you that bear didn’t come straight down from the mountain into that house through that window,” he said. “He was hitting garbages and bird feeders, those were his gateway drugs.”

Howe added that many bears’ first encounters with human-provided food go unnoticed.

“A lot of these houses are just second homes that people aren’t around regularly. Nobody even notices it,” he said. “They get comfortable going around houses. That big wooden square thing gave me a meal what about that one? They get more and more brave.”

Howe said that home owners should cut down on the attractants they leave out, like bird feed, garbage and even some fly traps.

“Bears like that smell just as much as flies do,” Howe said. “You get just as many birds visiting a house if you put out a bird bath. Store your garbage in a closed garage or a get a bear-proof dumpster. RAD has them.”

Howe underlined that the bears who get hooked on human food don’t get to enjoy a long life.

“I’m probably going to have to kill another bear that’s getting into garbages,” he said. “It’s not the bear’s fault.”

This article was originally published in the Teton Valley News. It is used here with permission.

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