By Guy Clifton and Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

A female black bear and her two cubs, tranquilized in a west Carson City neighborhood on Monday, are being returned to the wild, but a pair of marauding bears were euthanized over the weekend after separate incidents in Incline Village and Carson City.

The incidents come during the typical peak for bear activity in the Reno-Tahoe area as bears wander in search of food and often find trouble with people.

“It’s starting to get busy. The bears are moving around a lot more,” said Carl Lackey, a biologist and bear expert with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Department spokesman Chris Healy said a 2-year-old female bear that broke into a Carson City home and a 5-year-old male bear that grabbed a bottle of ketchup off a cafe table in the Raley’s Shopping Center in Incline Village were both euthanized after the weekend incidents.

On Monday in Carson City, the 11-year-old mother bear and her two 35-pound cubs — one male and one female — were tranquilized and were anticipated to be released into the mountains above Carson City either late Monday evening or early this morning, Healy said.

The mother and cubs were sighted in the 2300 block of Washington Street over several days last week. A live trap was set on Friday, but raccoons ate all the food and the trap had to be reset on Sunday.

One of the cubs was captured in the trap on Monday. The mother bear and other cub remained near the trap and all three were tranquilized by wildlife biologists on Monday morning.

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