wildlife

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – The Tahoe Basin is bear country and natural resource and law enforcement agencies are working diligently to remind residents and visitors to practice proper food storage and trash disposal when living in or visiting bear country. To help spread the message, a new website has been launched, TahoeBears.org, where residents and visitors can go to learn everything they need to know about living, visiting and playing responsibly in bear country.

The Juvenile Service Council (JSC) of El Dorado County is a 501c3 all-volunteer organization serving at-risk youth ages 14-18 who are involved in the Juvenile Justice system. Often these young people are some of our community’s most vulnerable and underserved. They are at a time in their lives when they need our “village” to be there for them without judgment, with kindness and compassion, and with the resources to be able to provide them the tools to be able to forge the future successfully.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Most have seen the blue and gold placards attached to trees on lots around Lake Tahoe, signifying the California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) owns that piece of property.

CTC currently owns nearly 4,700 of these labeled parcels comprising around 6,500 acres around Lake Tahoe. Over 4,300 of these parcels are environmentally sensitive, leaving 331 parcels as "asset lands."

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Since 1978 Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC) has been serving the community with a facility inside the home of founders, Tom and Cheryl Millham. Their long history of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing Tahoe’s injured and orphaned wildlife has gained national attention.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Lake Tahoe Basin and El Dorado County Roadwork schedule for Caltrans projects:

LONG-TERM PROJECTS

State Routes 28/89 (El Dorado and Placer County): Work continues on a $4.8 million project to remove dead and dying trees from State Routes 28 and 89 in various locations of El Dorado and Placer counties. Completion is expected this fall.

7/10/19 Update - The stats in this story are updated with recalculated totals.

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Today, 402 people volunteered along the shoreline of Lake Tahoe to protect this national treasure. As part of a lakewide cleanup organized by the League to Save Lake Tahoe (Keep Tahoe Blue), participants removed 1240.25 pounds of litter that would have harmed the Lake’s ecology.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Wilder Than Wild: Fires, Forest and the Future will be shown at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center amphitheater on Friday, June 28 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Besides the free showing of the film there will be a panel discussion that includes forest management experts, public land management agencies, local fire districts, local law enforcement, Tahoe Network of Fire Adapted Communities, Liberty Utilities and more.

Cigarette butts are the most commonly gathered items at beach and other clean-ups around Lake Tahoe. At the League to Save Tahoe's most recent cleanups this month (the Tahoe City Cleanup and the South Lake Tahoe Bike Path Cleanup) over 4,500 cigarette butts were collected. Last year more than 27,600 cigarette butts were collected in and around Lake Tahoe by the League alone.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - It's Wild Tahoe Weekend at the US Forest Service's Taylor Creek Visitor Center June 21-22! On Saturday it's the Native Species Festival and on Sunday, the 10th annual Lake Tahoe Bird Festival.

SATURDAY

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) will host the seventh annual Native Species Festival on Sunday, June 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This free family event is at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center, located three miles north of South Lake Tahoe on Highway 89.

6/4/19 4:00PM Update: Details have been updated in Monday evening's incident on Lake Tahoe. The two people were in a canoe that took on water for unknown reasons about 3/4 of a mile off the shore of South Lake Tahoe. They ended up in the water and were there for about ten minutes before a local boater got to them and pulled them out of the water. The Nevada Department of Wildlife had a boat on the water that reached the group, followed by the South Lake Tahoe Police Department (SLTPD) boat. SLTPD got the pair off the local boater's boat and returned them to El Dorado Beach.

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – Lake Tahoe natural resource and law enforcement agencies remind residents and visitors to practice proper food storage and trash disposal at all times while in bear country. Intentional or unintentional feeding of bears can result in unwanted bear behaviors, increased human-bear conflicts, and public safety issues, as well as fines and possible jail time for violators. Each year law enforcement and state wildlife officers respond to hundreds of calls in which bears may pose a public safety threat or are damaging property. In some cases, the bear must be euthanized.

The USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) will continue a project to eradicate, control, and contain known infestations of invasive plants in the Lake Tahoe Basin using chemical treatment. Work will take place at approximately 90 infestations sites (105 acres) beginning in late May and continuing through September 2019.

STATELINE, Nevada – The Sustainable Destinations Top 100 program recognized Lake Tahoe as a global sustainable destination at a tourism trade show in Berlin, Germany this spring.

For the past 18 years, volunteers have been monitoring water quality conditions across the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River watersheds, collecting data at a single point in time to better understand the area as a whole. It is a bi-state collaborative that can achieve a larger watershed approach to successful data collection.

On May 17 and 18, 2019, volunteers will once again head out and perform a variety of tests including temperature, pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, algae, and nitrogen.

LAKE TAHOE, Nev. - Anyone passing by the entrance to Round Hill Pines on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe during the summer months knows the traffic and safety issues created by drivers turning into the popular beachfront resort.

On Tuesday night there was a public meeting held to gather ideas on a solution to the ingress and egress issues the road has along Highway 50 in this area. Representatives from the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT), US Forest Service, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Federal Highway Administration(FHWA) were on hand to lead the discussion.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Over 60 people volunteered at the 5th annual South Lake Tahoe Earth Day Cleanup on Monday, April 23. They removed 750 pounds of trash which equals to 1,047 gallons of littler, as well as over 6,000 cigarette butts in just three hours.

As the warmer weather continues to melt snow, trash is being exposed. Not only is this an unsightly mess it can also be a hazard to wildlife and the lake's clarity.

Carson City was abuzz Thursday evening at the Nevada State Legislature, in which over 100 Nevadan residents gathered to support honeybees, and their ability to be kept by residents.

Senate Bill 389 relates to the ability to keep bees in residential zones in Nevada and has been hotly debated since it was announced on March 20. It was read during a Natural Resources Committee meeting Wednesday.

Residents attended to an extent that legislative staff needed to open an overflow room to provide for those gathered, in which the meeting was televised from down the hall.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - And then there were four. Blaze, Yreka, Paradise, and Pioneer are now making a temporary home at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care (LTWC).

On Tuesday, March 12, 2019, Tom and Cheryl Millham, founders of LTWC, drove to Rancho Cordova to pick up Blaze and Yreka, two very young cubs from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Investigation Lab.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Interested in volunteering for Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care? Now is your chance as the spring volunteer training session sign-ups start at 9:00 a.m. on March 1.

This year there will be training and education offered over two different weekends with a class on Saturday, May 4 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. covering general wildlife care information, and a separate hands-on training with their animal care team in early June for those who are interested in regularly volunteering at their South Lake Tahoe facility.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – California State Parks and the Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District will continue prescribed fire operations over the next several weeks in multiple locations around Lake Tahoe, weather, staffing, and conditions permitting.

Six areas are currently scheduled for burning -

1. DL Bliss Campground - Acreage: 17 (Ongoing)
2. D. L. Bliss Gateway - Acreage: 4 (Ongoing)
3. Sunset Stables East - Acreage: 10 (Ongoing)
4. NV State Lands - Lower Kingsbury - Acreage: 5 (Planned start January 30)

UDPATE 1/13/19 - The second drowning victim has been recovered from Topaz Lake. The recovery efforts resumed today on at 9:00 a.m. by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Marine 7 and search and rescue units, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Specialized Vehicle Unit (SUV) and their HASTY Dive Team, and Wardens from the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

At approximately 1:30 p.m. Marine 7’s ROV located the body of Jesse Gregory, 50, at a depth of 22 feet.

The surviving fisherman, Scott Wise, has recovered and was released from the hospital.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A public memorial for the first superior court judge in the community, the Honorable Terrence M. Finney, will be held on Friday, January 4, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Department 3 of the South Lake Tahoe courthouse.

Finney passed away on November 7, 2018 at the age of 84.

When Cinder the Bear arrived in South Lake Tahoe on August 4, 2014 the prognosis wasn't a good one. The 18-month old black bear had been severely burned in the Carlton Complex Fire in Washington and weighed in at just 39 pounds, about half of what a cub her age should be.

The story of her determination and recovery won the hearts of many around the globe and now she is dead.

Weather permitting, California State Parks, California Tahoe Conservancy, North Lake Tahoe and Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection Districts and the U.S. Forest Service may continue prescribed fire operations over the next several weeks in multiple locations around Lake Tahoe.

Area 1 - No planned burning.