Big Bear ‘Hank the Tank’ In Custody

Wildlife biologists in South Lake Tahoe, California finally captured the big bear known as Hank the Tank, the zaftig black bear that’s been breaking and entering homes for over a year. The bear had supposedly been involved in "152 reports of conflict behavior," among them 28 home invasions.

It turned out that the burglar was not a single animal but at least three bears with a similar m.o. One of the big marauders was finally caught last week, a big female known as Bear 64F. This big girl is implicated in at least 21 instances of breaking-and-entering, crimes she committed with her three cubs in tow.

Normally the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) would euthanize a recidivist offender like 64F on the grounds she presented a danger to the human community. But her life will be spared, in part because of the widespread press coverage of the South Lake Tahoe break-ins. The public is clearly on Team Hank, blaming the humans for failing to secure their trash bins and for encroaching on the bears’ habitat in the first place.

So Bear64 is scheduled to be moved to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado, where she’ll share 33,000 acres with lions, tigers, wolves, and of course other bears. “We welcome ‘Hank the Tank’, (turned out to be Henrietta the Tank) to Colorado!,” tweeted Governor Jared Polis. 

Her three cubs will likely be sent to a wildlife rehab facility in Petaluma, CA where they will unlearn the criminal behaviors they picked up from their reprobate mom. If that works out they’ll be released in the wild again, free to roam the forests but encouraged to keep away from dumb humans.

Photo credit: Bear Leagu

Photo credit: California Department of Fish and Wildlife