{"id":399210,"date":"2026-07-15T10:56:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399210\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:56:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:56:58","slug":"lake-tahoe-man-uses-bear-spray-to-deter-rushing-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/399210\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake Tahoe man uses bear spray to deter rushing bear"},"content":{"rendered":"

A video from the Fourth of July weekend in Lake Tahoe shows a man encounter an aggressive bear at his cabin.<\/p>\n

Captured on a home security camera and initially provided to Storyful, the footage shows the man, identified as Cortlandt Koerwitz, using bear spray to deter the approaching animal. He was reportedly outside his garage preparing for a day on his boat.<\/p>\n

The video shows the bear rushing Koerwitz, who grabs a can of bear spray and shoots it at the bear.<\/p>\n

Koerwitz told Storyful<\/a> that the encounter left him \u201cscared and confused\u201d because bears in Lake Tahoe \u201cdon\u2019t normally aggressively rush people,\u201d Fox 26, a Houston television station, reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of encounter is rare. Normally bears around Tahoe don\u2019t want anything to do with humans,\u201d he told Storyful, a video content provider.<\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee was provided the video through the California Post via VideoElephant.<\/p>\n

The National Park Service offers advice<\/a> on selecting, carrying and using EPA-approved bear spray. NPS suggests carrying the spray in a quick-draw holster on your hip or chest, but not in your backpack.<\/p>\n

Spray when the bear is 30-60 feet away, aiming slightly downward to create a cloud the bear must pass through, according to NPS.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

David Caraccio<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

David Caraccio is a video producer for The Sacramento Bee who was born and raised in Sacramento. He is a graduate of San Diego State University and a longtime journalist who has worked for newspapers as a reporter, editor, page designer and digital content producer.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A video from the Fourth of July weekend in Lake Tahoe shows a man encounter an aggressive bear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-399210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}