Surveillance video captures bear breaking into Calif. home
Bear enters California home through kitchen window.
A couple in California received an unexpected visitor earlier this month when a roughly 7-foot, 300-pound black bear entered their home through the kitchen window.
"I still couldn't understand how [the bear] could fit through that," Lane Sykes, one of the residents of the South Lake Tahoe home, told KOLO8.
Sykes told the news station that he and Carole Scofield, who also lives at the home, left for roughly an hour with some friends. During that time, the black bear was able to squeeze its way through a small kitchen window that was left open.
"The doors were locked. We left the back window open, which is a small window; I have never thought a bear could get in that window,” Skyes added.
Home surveillance footage shows the event unfold. One of the couple’s friends said she saw the bear in the kitchen, according to KOLO8.
"I thought she was kidding,” Scofield said, but she noticed her friend looked “frightened and very scared.”
It's not entirely clear what food items the bear took. At one point, however, it appears to snag a bag of M&M's.
This is the second time the same bear has broken into their home looking for food, Scofield told the news station. The first time it broke down their front door, she said.
In total, the couple said they've had trouble with bears on six different occasions during the 20 years they’ve lived in South Lake Tahoe.
Lesa Johnston, with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told KOLO8 that bears normally rummage through trash cans in search of food, but they're also known to look elsewhere.
"At some point in the bears' life, they gain some type of food reward by breaking in a cabin or a home, so they remember that, so the behavior is likely to be repeated," Johnston said.
"We are very lucky,” Scofield said. “Both major break-ins, we were very lucky. I know a lot of people have not been. It has been very, very costly.”
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