A bear walked into an ice cream parlour. The strawberry never had a chance
By Mark Walker
Washington: Early last Sunday, hours before the first waffle cone of the day was topped with a scoop at an ice cream parlour near the south shore of Lake Tahoe in California, a security guard heard a noise.
At first, he thought it was coming from a rubbish bin behind the parlour at Camp Richardson, a 52-hectare resort in South Lake Tahoe. But when he aimed his torch in the container, it was empty.
Fuzzy was taste-testing ice cream behind the counter of the shop before being startled by police and lumbering into the night.Credit: Instagram
Then, as he circled the building in search of the source of the noise, he lifted the beam towards the front window and saw a large black bear staring back at him. The bear was standing behind the counter next to the cash register, as if he were an employee waiting to serve a customer.
At 4.11am, the guard called the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies arrived to find the bear behind the counter in the middle of a taste test.
The animal had slipped through the front door and gone straight for the ice cream, authorities said.
The parlour offers 20 flavours and 13 toppings. It has the classics, of course: vanilla bean, chocolate and strawberry. For the more adventurous, there’s coconut pineapple and strawberry cheesecake. Even green tea.
The bear, whom the sheriff’s office nicknamed Fuzzy, sampled as many flavours as it could get its paws on.
Tubs lay overturned, ice cream half-eaten. Paw prints stretched across the black-and-white floor.
The deputies startled the bear, which stopped eating but could not find the exit. They shouted and shone their torches. Finally, the animal lumbered through the front door and back into the dark. The deputies followed to shoo it away from nearby buildings and into the forest.
The shop itself suffered little damage. The bear “caused barely any property damage, and there was barely any clean-up”, the sheriff’s office wrote in a post on Facebook, accompanied by images of the bear behind the counter.
Camp Richardson’s ice cream parlour is a favourite summer stop and often has a long line of holidaymakers extending out the door. After the bear’s visit, stools and napkin dispensers stood undisturbed. Only the ice cream was lost, every tub tossed before another summer day could begin.
“We’re pretty sure he didn’t wash his claws before he came in, so all the ice cream had to be replaced,” said William Boas, vice president of operations for ExplorUS, which operates the Camp Richardson Resort.
The shop reopened later that day after employees finished a deep cleaning.
While this one stood out because of its setting, encounters with bears are not uncommon in the Tahoe Basin, which is home to one of the country’s densest black bear populations. In the past two years, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office has responded to nearly 650 bear-related calls: cars broken into, doors prised open, kitchens raided.
‘We’re pretty sure he didn’t wash his claws before he came in, so all the ice cream had to be replaced.’
William Boas, ExplorUS
Sergeant Kyle Parker, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, recalled an incident from 2018 in which a black bear entered a car through an unlocked door in search of food and left through the back windshield after it found itself trapped there.
There are about 500 black bears in the Tahoe Basin and around 60,000 in California, according to Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Tira said residents and visitors should never feed bears, always give a bear an avenue for escape, and avoid getting between a mother bear and her cubs.
“I would not say to ‘stand your ground’ if a bear approaches,” Tira said. “Make yourself look big, make loud noises and continue to back away.”
There are about 500 black bears in the Tahoe Basin and around 60,000 in California.Credit: iStock
Alexia Ronning, a Tahoe Basin bear specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said that, over time, black bears in the area have become addicted to human food because it’s easier to come by. Why root for berries or grubs when there is pizza or ice cream to be had?
As for Fuzzy, which flavour did he appear to enjoy the most?
Strawberry, it seems, according to Parker, the sheriff’s office spokesperson.
“He ate the most of that one,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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