California Hikers Urged to Exercise Food Safety to Avoid Bear Encounters

Scented items like lip balm, deodorant, and toothpaste should also be kept inside bear boxes to avoid attracting wildlife.

A California black bear roams in Three Rivers, Calif. on Oct. 23, 2015. Brian Melley/AP Photo

Visitors headed to the Lake Tahoe Basin in California this summer and fall should take steps to exercise caution around bears, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“There are a lot of bears here and those bears have an incredibly strong sense of smell and a strong desire for food that intensifies at different times of the year, particularly in the fall,” with the onset of hyperphagia, a feeling of extreme hunger that drives bears to hunt and search for food, environmental scientist Alexia Ronning said in a press release July 11 from the department’s Tahoe Interagency Bear Team.