How to keep bears away from your home – these tips can help
Bear-human interactions can be dangerous for both bears and humans. Here are tips to avoid attracting bears.
A bear entered a home off Kingsbury Grade near Lake Tahoe early Wednesday, Nov. 19 and injured the 87-year-old homeowners, the Nevada Department of Wildlife said in a news release.
Game wardens said a man found a bear searching for food in his garage around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. The bear scratched the man’s hand and followed him into the house, where it also scratched a woman before leaving.
The homeowners were treated and released from the hospital Wednesday.
“We are grateful that these individuals sustained minor injuries and are OK,” said Shawn Espinosa, game division administrator for NDOW.
“Bears are still experiencing hyperphagia, or a phase where they build up as many calories as possible before going into their dens for winter,” Espinosa said. “To ensure bears make their ways to their dens, it is important that residents secure attractants.”
Ashley Zeme, a spokesperson with NDOW, said they “have set a trap in the area, but as of now we have not caught a bear. If or when we do capture a bear, we will collect DNA and compare it to samples from the incident to confirm whether it is the same animal. Once we have that information, we can determine the appropriate next steps.”
“Our first priority is protecting the public, and this is a serious situation in which a bear made physical contact with two people and followed one of them into a home. We want to prevent something like this, or something even more serious, from happening again,” Zeme said.
Here’s a look at bear activity in Northern Nevada and how to prevent it in residential areas.
Are there bears in Reno?
Yes, and bears are more active in Reno when the first freeze arrives late. University of Nevada, Reno professors and wildlife officials collaborated on a recent study that found a correlation between late frosts and an increase in conflict calls involving bears.
A delayed frost often means less snowpack in Northern Nevada, which reduces natural food sources in the mountains. That scarcity drives bears toward lower elevations and into urban areas in search of food.
This year saw the latest freeze in Reno ever recorded. Reno’s first freeze of fall 2025 arrived overnight Nov. 18-19.
What keeps bears away?
Bear-human interactions can be dangerous for both bears and humans. NDOW recommends these tips to avoid attracting bears to Northern Nevadans yards in the first place:
Secure your garbage
This is the biggest attractant for bears, NDOW said. More than 90% of bear-human incidents are caused by unsecured garbage, NDOW said.
You can find contacts for local waste management and other options at ndow.org/blog/living-with-bears.
Electric fencing
Zeme said one option to deter bears is electric fencing. The cost of an electric fence is far less than the loss of livestock and property damage, she said.
“Electric fencing is the best way to secure outdoor attractants like gardens, orchards, beehives and chicken coops. We’ve had multiple reports of bears killing chickens in the past few weeks,” Zeme told the RGJ in October.
Manage your fruit trees
Orchards or backyard fruit trees can draw bears into human communities. Zeme recommends picking fruit as soon as it’s ripe and cleaning up any on the ground. This can also prevent rats from being attracted to your home. If you can’t manage upkeep on your fruit trees, Zeme said the Reno Gleaning Project can collect it for you. She added that electric fencing also works well to protect fruit trees.
Never feed or approach bears
BearWise, a program that informs homeowners on how to live safely in communities with bears, said intentionally feeding bears or allowing them find things that smell or taste like food encourages them to approach homes and people. If people get too close, bears will defend themselves, risking the safety of people and bears.
Remove bird feeders. The seeds and grains in bird feeders have a lot of calories, which is what bears are looking going into winter. Removing them from your yard during a time of high bear activity can keep you and bears safe.Never leave pet food outdoors. BearWise recommends feeding pets indoors and storing food where bears can’t smell it.Clean grills and smokers. Grills and smokers can smell like fat and food. After cleaning, store grills and smokers inside during high bear activity times.Talk with your neighbors. If residents see bears or evidence of bear activity, BearWise said it’s important to tell your neighbors and share info on how to avoid conflicts with bears. “Bears have adapted to living near people; now it’s up to us to adapt to living near bears,” BearWise said.Are bears in Nevada unusual?
No. Bears lived in Nevada long before the first settlers came to the region. But by 1900, bear populations had been destroyed in the region for a variety of reasons including unregulated hunting, conflicts with settlers’ livestock and clear-cutting of forests.
Conservation and habitat regeneration increased bear populations in Nevada dramatically since the 1980s.
You can learn more at the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s website.
Are bear encounters more common in the fall?
Yes. Autumn is the last chance for bears to eat a lot and prepare for the cold, dark winter days where they need to conserve their energy. People living on the outskirts of or recreating within the Nevada wilderness should store food in secure areas, clean up food and smelly things thoroughly and eliminate anything that may make them unaware of their surroundings while outdoors, such as earphones.
How do I make sure a bear does not make a home out of my deck, porch, RV or outbuilding?
As bears search for warm places to live as temperatures drop, the enclosed bottom of a deck or porch may look like a welcome home for sleeping and possibly birthing babies. Make sure all windows are closed and locked and all food and smelly materials are secured. BearWise also recommends people in high-bear areas to replace any outdoor lever-style handles because bears can easily open these compared to turn doorknobs.
People should also lock pet doors and secure any holes in porches or decks, including below them.
Do bears actually hibernate?
Yes, but black bears in the Sierra Nevada hibernate differently from other “true hibernators” such as bats, marmots, squirrels and rodents. These animals will remain dormant for many weeks and their body temperature will drop significantly below what is normal while active.
During hibernation, a black bear’s metabolic rate slows and its body temperature may drop but not significantly. The bear will not eat, drink, urinate or defecate during hibernation. Black bears are able to recycle calcium back into their bones during hibernation, avoiding the usual osteoporosis that typically accompanies long periods of inactivity. Black bears will also slough their paw pads during hibernation, according to sierrawild.gov.
Black bears in the Sierra Nevada usually den from mid-December to March or early April. In places with milder winters, this hibernation period is shorter and bears that have enough food don’t hibernate at all. Other bears will hibernate for periods and leave the den at various points throughout the winter.