A large brownish colored black bear emerges from his den in the crawl space of an abandoned house in South Lake Tahoe, California (USA). In this densely populated small town, black bears have grown increasingly bold and numerous, finding a reliable year round food source in unsecured garbage around the city. Reports of bears breaking into homes is on the rise. Local bear expert Toogee, a volunteer for Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care helps to track and evict bears that have denned down under houses and on peoples property. After discovering this bear asleep under this house during the day, I captured this image with a camera trap placed outside the exit overnight.
Cities Gone Wild
Cities Gone Wild is an exploration of three savvy animals: black bears, coyotes and raccoons. Each of these urban carnivores are uniquely equipped to survive and even thrive in the human built landscape at a time when urbanization is decimating habitat for less adapted wildlife. I tracked these three carnivores in cities across the United States, to reveal how they are using our infrastructure and resources to carve out a unique place in society that might help them survive an uncertain future. Published in the July, 2022 issue of National Geographic Magazine
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