Coyotes and Bears at Mammoth Lakes

Around Mammoth, you’ll see many signs and bumper stickers admonishing us to “help our bears” or “save our bears”. They’re usually meant as reminders to keep your food trash away from the bears, so that they don’t become dependent on human food, start sleeping on park benches in the middle of town and panhandling among the tourists.

In our condo complex, all the trash bins have the following sign:
Please
Help the bears
– Place trash in bins
– Close and latch bins

This totally cracks me up – I have this image of a tourist instructing a nodding bear on the best way to open the bin and dispose of his tuna and beer cans. But maybe that’s just me (Carolyn).

But it’s real – when Fred was walking Bentley on Saturday night, he met with some folks on the road who had seen a bear ambling along the road. He leashed up Bentley at that point.

Even more interesting are the coyotes here. In Southern California, we’re used to having small, rangy reclusive coyotes. They are usually solo, once the cubs get to a certain age. Their diet is mostly vegetable, with small animals as an occasional dessert. Coyotes are big avocado eaters.

But here in the mountains, coyotes take on the behavior and appearance of wolves. They’re bigger, beefier, and travel in packs. Mountain coyotes hunt in packs; they’ll call out to a dog with their yippy barks or send a female in heat to lure an unsuspecting animal into an ambush. We’ve heard them calling to Bentley as soon as they hear his collar jingle. He almost fell for it one time, but he’s smart enough to have turned back before getting too far from Fred. Townies confirm that people just don’t let their animals out after dark.