Game warden holds out hope for troublesome bear family

After calls poured into the Placer County Sheriff’s Office as a family of wayward bears wandered into Roseville over the weekend, Fish and Game officials now hope they’ll stay out of trouble.

“I’m not sure of the outcome,” Placer Game Warden Brian Moore told the Fish and Game Commission Wednesday night.

Moore said right now a trap has been set for the bears if they return to Granite Bay. If caught there, they would be put down.

“It was requested by the homeowner,” Moore said. “A landowner that has property damage due to wildlife can request the depredation (kill) permit and we can’t refuse them.”

The four bears were last spotted Wednesday near Horseshoe Bar Road and Auburn Folsom Road.

Moore said the bears have been known to frequent the unsecured garbage of a restaurant near the I-80 and Foresthill exit in Auburn and for some unknown reason started the trek to Roseville.

The unusual location for bears spurred about 40 calls into the Sheriff’s Office reporting the black bear sow and her triplet cubs as they made it down to Granite Bay through Loomis and back again.

Rocklin resident Greg Janda’s wife Julie discovered the suburban spectacle Saturday morning – bears going house to house off Scarborough Drive in Roseville.

“They followed the greenbelt into our neighborhoods,” Janda said.

He told the commission he supported the bears and didn’t want them killed.

“They are not interested in you, they are looking for food,” Janda said. “Don’t invite them by having food around for them.”

Moore believes bear-proof trash cans are a great deterrent but doesn’t believe Roseville residents need to go out and get one.

“No, this is isolated,” Moore said. “I think over the weekend the bears were scared pretty bad. People were seeing them and they were scattering. I hope they come back up here go back in that American River Canyon and start eating grubs, berries and grass and be bears.”

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