On Aug. 2, a Reddit user posted a video of a black bear and three cubs to the Reno subreddit. That person was driving at night near Lakeside Drive and Holcomb Ranch Lane in south Reno when their headlights illuminated the four bears sprinting across the road.
I’ve seen bears in Tahoe before, on trails and in town. But a bear sighting in Reno gave me pause; it made me confront a natural world that normally feels boxed out by the neon, freeways and strip malls of our urban environment. How often do we think about Reno as being close to wilderness or the animals within it as needing protection?
The presence of bears locally signifies a conservation success story. Ashley Zeme, Public Information Officer for the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), explained in a recent interview that black bears are here because they follow the lush vegetation along canyons and waterways down the Carson Range and into town. This behavior is not new. Historically, bears lived across much of northwestern Nevada and near Tonopah, Austin, Elko and Winnemucca. Zeme said that mining and unregulated hunting in the early 1900s nearly killed the populations off, but recent improvements in the bears’ habitat in the Reno/Tahoe area have improved population numbers. According to NDOW estimates from 2023, northwest Nevada is home to around 700 bears.
“The bears’ population has been growing, but that’s just been decades and decades in the making,” Zeme said. As of the late 1980s, there were closer to 100-200 bears nearby.
Biologists at NDOW don’t believe that presence of bears in and near the city is setting record numbers. (The drought year of 2022 was an exception, however, as more bears had to wander farther for food). But a combination of healthy bear repopulation mixed with Reno’s rapid growth means that the humans and bears are crossing paths more often.
Each year, NDOW receives an average of 500-700 bear calls. Washoe County (which includes Incline Village) accounts for 46% of these; Douglas County, 29%; Carson City, 15%; and Lyon County, 8%. On the day before my call with Zeme in early August, she said NDOW had received a few calls that week about bears around Plumb Lane.
“It is pretty common, especially at night,” she said. Zeme said to expect bears in the communities surrounding and built onto the Carson Range—including Caughlin Ranch and Galena—and that they might travel as far east as Damonte Ranch.
“We’re not shocked when we see that,” she said. “It’s not as usual as when we see them on the western side [of Reno], but it still doesn’t surprise us.”
Bears cross the threshold between open and urban spaces via waterways that meander through neighborhoods, like Alum Creek and Steamboat Ditch. They rejoice in the stockpiles of human-placed food sources like fruit trees, bird feeders and garbage cans—especially before hibernation, around late August and early September, when they need about 20,000 calories a day.
“That’s like equivalent to 60 cheeseburgers,” Zeme said with a chuckle.
“A fed bear is a dead bear” is a common saying around mountain towns like Truckee. This means that when humans leave food or trash available to bears, bears begin to associate humans and human spaces (cars, houses, etc.) with food. Their fear of humans decreases, and they become bolder, opening the door to bear-human conflict and possible euthanasia for the bear.
“We get public safety incidents in Reno from time to time,” Zeme said, noting that NDOW does its best to capture and release these so-called problem bears. “But, ultimately, we need the community to live responsibly in bear country by securing all attractants.” Ninety percent of the bear calls NDOW receives involve bears getting into unsecured trash bins at private residences.
A simple solution is to invest in securing trash. Waste Management offers bear-proof garbage cans. Existing customers qualify, and there is no waitlist to get a new container.
NDOW stresses the importance of minding bird feeders and fruit trees as well as trash. While bird feeders might get you a front row seat to a blue jay or warbler sighting, they provide bears with a cache of high-density fat and calories. NDOW recommends taking bird feeders down at dusk and replacing them at dawn, as most Reno bear visits occur at night.
“Another option is to actually scatter the seeds on the ground,” Zeme said, “because the birds will still get to them and pick them up, where a bear wouldn’t take time to find every little seed if it was scattered on the ground.”
Lisa Nunley, general manager of Caughlin Ranch HOA, noted that residents are prohibited from planting fruit trees in their yards. NDOW also discourages the planting of fruit trees elsewhere in town, but if you already have one, they recommend cleaning ripe fruit immediately from branches and the ground below.
If you see a bear in the city, Zeme recommends calling NDOW’s bear hotline at (775) 688-BEAR (2327).