"For over six weeks, Ken Johnson had an unexpected and unwanted housemate a 550-pound male bear. But with the assistance of the Lake Tahoe BEAR League, the animal finally exited from under Johnson's house on Tuesday, Jan. 6. After several unsuccessful attempts by Johnson and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to drive the bear out by using scented lures and loud noises, the BEAR League fired off paintball guns to irritate the bear."
"Dave Fleishman, who has worked as a responder with the BEAR League for three and a half years, chased the animal with a paintball gun after his colleague had crawled under the house with the bear and fired a few paintball rounds into the ground to spook the animal. He stopped between the crawl space and the driveway, and I thought he changed his mind and he was gonna turn around and come back, Fleishman said. That necessitated a few more paintball rounds."
""It's not something that is unusual in the bear world, Fleishman said of the paintball method. They really don't like the sound. They don't like the dirt flying. Johnson said the balls don't harm the bear. You've got to understand, these paintballs are the same ones that their people use for recreational games. They get a hit and it leaves a bruise and it hurts, but if they do, it's fine, he said.""
Ken Johnson had a 550-pound male bear living under his house from Nov. 25. Multiple attempts by Johnson and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife using scented lures and loud noises failed to dislodge the animal. The Lake Tahoe BEAR League intervened and used paintball guns to irritate and spook the bear, prompting it to squeeze out from underneath the home on Jan. 6. BEAR League responders sometimes crawl under houses to coax bears into exiting. Responders say paintball rounds are nonlethal but painful enough to encourage movement, and that bears generally avoid human conflict and seek escape when distressed.
Read at www.pasadenastarnews.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]