It's easy to forget about the bears during the winter months when they're denned up and in hiding. In some places, like Lake Tahoe, they may be closer than you think. This area has a lot of urban bruins and the bears are certainly adapting to being around humans. Perhaps they're adapting a little too well, as these videos shared on social media prove. These videos were captured by Instagram user tahoetoogee using a Browning trail camera and they show two large male black bears who have decided to den up under an abandoned home. The cameras are perfectly placed to capture the movements of the bruins under the home, which is more than you might expect when most people assume the animals sleep all winter.
The first video shows some up-close views of one of the bruins as he shuffles around under the floorboards. The second one shows both bears. It seems each has claimed a different end of the home as his own and they are strangely not intruding on one another's space. It's something we might not have believed had we not seen the video with our own eyes.
This second video shows both bears together in the same shot. It's almost like they have a divided room like two brothers.
One could argue this is not a good place for the bears to den up as it habituates them more towards humans. However, so long as the house is unoccupied, we're doubting it'll be too much of a problem.
According to tahoetoogee's other posts, at least one of these bruins denning under a home has used the underside of the building as his hibernation spot for the last four years and counting. The Instagrammer also speculates that the easily availability of food resources in the Lake Tahoe area has made bears that would normally be rivals much more tolerant of one another. Two male bears would normally never den together like this.
Contrary to popular belief, bears do not simply sleep the winter away, as enticing as that may sound. It is not uncommon for bears to not eat or defecate through the whole winter. They will occasionally leave their dens for a short period of time before returning for more rest. It seems these bears in the video are fat and healthy. They're just doing their yearly denning in a most unusual location.
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