Imagine walking into your home, and seeing a massive 500-pound bear digging through your fridge… looking at you as if you’re breaking into his house, not the other way around.
Apparently, this is becoming a relatively common scene in the South Lake Tahoe, California area.
According to CBS 13 Sacramento, a bear who is now known as “Hank the Tank” has broken into dozens of homes now, and officials are trying to figure out exactly what the hell to do with the ginormous bear.
He’s now wanted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as “Hank the Tank” has damaged dozens of homes and is responsible for more than 150 calls.
They’ve been trying to track him down for more than six-months.
Trying? He’s hard to miss…
California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Peter Tira said:
“These are neighborhoods, there’s a lot of people around, traffic and cars. So, we have to do this in a way that is safe for both the public and the bear itself. This is a severely food habituated bear.
What that means is this is a bear that has lost all fear of people and it sees people and homes as a source of food.”
Resident Bridget Marchetti Philip is about tired of the constant appearances the black bear has been making in the area:
“I’m tired of having to fear our lives quite frankly because of what the bear may or may not do.”
Philip and her family own a home across the street where “Hank the Tank” made his most recent appearance on Catalina Drive, and her brother-in-law John Barrett said he is worried about the safety of the kids.
Police responded to a call on Friday morning on Catalina Drive of the bear inside a home. He had broken a small window and squeezed through to get into the home, and homeowners had no idea how to get him out.
Another resident of the area, Tim Johnson, also weighed in on the extra precautions he’s had to take:
“I’ve been in town 40 years and I’ve been locking my doors recently and I’ve never done that. The more we don’t feed them, the more this isn’t going to be the case.”
Many have called for the bear to be killed, but the Bear League says that doing so would be cruel and unnecessary.
The Bear League says they are still waiting for a response from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on a possible sanctuary move for “Hank the Tank.”
A meeting on the issue is set for Wednesday night in Tahoe Keys.
