Aggressive bear killed by deputies in Meyers

Deputies from the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office were called out to the neighborhood of Minniconiou and Susquehana Drives on Wednesday morning to reports an aggressive 700-800 pound bear.

The bear had reportedly been disrupting the neighborhood for several weeks by breaking into multiple residences.

Deputies located the bear and attempted to get the bear to move away from the residential area, using loud noises and less lethal bean bag rounds. In most cases these types of tactics are very successful and result in the bear leaving the area.

The bear did not leave and moved aggressively towards the deputies.

"Based on the circumstances deputies unfortunately had no choice, but to use lethal force on the bear when other non-lethal measures failed to have an effect," said EDSO Lt. Bryan Golmitz.

Deputies were in contact with the Fish and Wildlife agency and updated them on the incident.

"The Sheriff’s Office attempts to take every measure possible to resolve bear incident cases at the lowest level, however when personal safety is in jeopardy, deputies must protect life and maintain safety," said Golmitz in a press release.

In the past year, deputies have responded to 177 bear related calls. 23 of those calls were in the same area as Wednesday's incident. This is the first time deputies have had to kill a bear.

According to Golmitz, the Sheriff’s Office has trained deputies for the past 15 years on how to effectively handle bear related calls. Deputies are and given tools of a less lethal nature to divert bears from the inside of homes and from neighborhoods back to the forest lands.