Like thousands of other residents, a mother and her three children fought the heat over the weekend by spending time at a California beach. But unfortunately for the other beachgoers, the mom and her children were bears.
"We were all a little shocked," says resident Jen Watkins, who was at South Lake Tahoe's Pope Beach when the bears arrived. She says the bears cooled off in the water for a while before the mother bear got "a little unfriendly" with a golden retriever it perceived as a threat. Then, after snatching someone's cooler, the mother bear and her cubs headed back into the forest, Watkins says.
Although the encounter occurred without any serious problems, Placer Counter Sheriff's Lieutenant Nelson Resendes is warning people that bears can't be trusted. "They can be very dangerous," he says. "We are in their territory when we're up in the Foothills and in the Sierra."