Unless Hank is a sex-neutral bear name. Which it could be!
Anyway, you all may remember this bear.
Back in 2022, a black bear called “Hank the Tank” took the nation by storm—or at least he took a lot of its garbage. Hank has been a serial break-in artist in a gated community in the Lake Tahoe area, and responsible for dozens of breaking and entering incidents, including things like demolishing a 2 lb tub of ice cream (which honestly? Goals), scratching up people’s cars, and more.
Now, wildlife officials have successfully darted a bear who’s DNA matched 21 of the break-ins. And our presumed Hank is actually a Henrietta. Henrietta (actual name bear 64F), is only one of three bears that have been confirmed as causing havoc, but the other two bears haven’t been seen near people this year. This bear, on the other hand, was captured along with her three cubs, who she’d been bringing along on her most recent robberies.
64F had been denning with her three cubs under a Lake Tahoe home (not at all uncommon). She even got a fancy collar to track her location, but this bear could not be tamed and shed her jewelry. Now, she’ll be moved to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, and her cubs will go to the Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue, in the hopes they can be released to the wild when they’re grown. One of the cubs at least had a run in with a car already and might be injured, so needs to be assessed for that.
This seems like a sweet story, with a peaceful solution. Honestly, it’s not. Bears like 64F are often deemed “problem” bears, because they get into humans’ homes and garbage and cause property damage. Sometimes they injure or kill humans.
But the reason this bear was able to do this is because people were not careful about where they put their trash. They put out bear attractants: bird feeders, dirty grills, pet food, garbage. The bear arrived and instead of scaring it off and securing food, people took pictures. It’s a collective problem. This is a vacation community, full of a lot of transient people, none of whom really need to be invested in following the rules.
In the end, the creatures who suffer for it are the bears, getting hit by cars, or put down because they come into conflict with people. What saved “Hank” was her internet fame, the fact that people posted all those photos and everyone wrote articles about her.
For every bear like her, hundreds more are not famous, and get unceremoniously put down. In fact, hundreds of black bears are put down every year for behavior exactly like 64F’s. They can’t generally get relocated, not only would they end up dropped in another bear’s territory and potentially killed because they don’t know the landscape, relocated bears often travel hundreds of miles to get back home. Sanctuaries are few and far between, overcrowded and underfunded. So when there are too many phone calls to the wildlife guys…those guys end up putting down the bear. They don’t love it. I’ve never met anyone who became a bear biologist because they wanted to kill bears.
We can learn from Hank. We can learn to clean up after ourselves, to take bears seriously, and not as momentary tourist attractions. We can learn to live with them, and not against them. We just need to respect bears for what they are, clever food missiles, and not try to force them into what we want them to be.
Where have you been?
And is it reading about crocodiles can distinguish the cries of baby bonobos, chimps, and humans by how much distress they’re in? Scientists played recordings of crying babies at a Crocoparc, and Nile crocodiles came up and sat next to the speakers—and sometimes gave them a chomp. The crocs were even better at telling when baby bonobos were in distress than people were. Sure, some of it is probably predatory, but female crocs do respond to the distress calls of their own babies, so it’s possible some of the crocs could care.*
Maybe it’s reading this oped by Madeline Miller about her experience with long COVID, and how its affect her productivity, her relationships, and everything about her life. “One demanded: How long are you going to do this? As if trying to avoid covid was an attack on her, rather than an attempt to keep myself from sliding further into an abyss that threatens to swallow my family.”
Or maybe it’s reading about how trumpetfish (which look nothing like trumpets?) hide behind parrotfish on reefs to sneak up on their prey. A stalking horse! Stalking fish? Whatever. I love it.
Where have I been?
At Science News writing about moss. It’s a cute moss. It’s an OLD moss. 390 million years old. This moss saw the dinosaurs die and just shrugged it off. It saw its mossy friends become coal. Now? This moss, which lives about 4,000 meters on the Tibetan Plateau and is so tough that three students got altitude sickness just trying to study it, might not make it through the next century. Why? Climate change.
And I’ve been on Science Friday this week, reading the news roundup! So fun.
Also, a friend spotted the LARGE PRINT edition of my book in her local library! It made me so happy. I love being in libraries.
*Note: I received email after I talked about this study on Science Friday from a very kind listener who let me know that there’s a narrative of people using the children of enslaved people as actual BAIT for alligators. I had never heard of this before. It’s clear the study authors and no one who covered the study knew about it either. It’s unclear if this really happened, but it’s clear that it’s serious to some people, and I should not have been so light in covering it. I’m sorry. Sci Fri has removed the segment, and I so appreciate how responsive they were and how seriously they took the revelation.
As someone who rents vacation homes in Asheville, NC, Edisto Beach, SC, and other places we are always careful to avoid putting/leaving out garbage where animals might be tempted. When we rent we don't put out our garbage for pickup until the morning of (not the night before) pick up. At home our city has provided us with GREAT trash bins that can be secured against our local wildlife thieves and explorers - raccoons. Great to live in a place that takes seriously the need to protect humans and the wildlife that share our homescape.