"The number of calls is increasing every week," said LaDora Cooper, receptionist in the DFG's Region 1 headquarters office in Redding.

Steve Conger, DFG patrol captain in the agency's Eureka office, agreed, adding, "We've been getting quite a few complaints from Trinity County and now it's starting in Humboldt County as well."

"Bears have come out of the winter hungry and they're willing to eat anything, especially anything easy," he said.

As a result, the DFG is issuing what is becoming a twice-yearly plea to residents and campers to keep food sources out of the reach of black bears so the highly intelligent animals don't learn bad habits that could lead to either serious loss of personal property or the destruction of the bear.

Fish and Game said pet food, fresh fruit, garbage and — in the case of campers, ice chests — are among the many items that can turn a hungry spring bear into a habitual problem. In a case initially blamed on a mountain lion, one bear made repeated nighttime attacks on a Trinity County resident's horse, the DFG said.

Fish and Game said its policy is to encourage the complaining humans to keep attractants such as pet food out of the reach of bears so the animals will return to the woods for natural foods. The policy does not provide for capturing and moving bears because of the potential for merely shifting a problem into someone else's neighborhood and because most bear habitat is already supporting its full complement of bears, the DFG said.

Bears are killed if they are consistently causing serious property damage or if there is reason to believe they have become a threat to public safety.

At the root of the problem is the high intelligence of black bears, California's only species of bear since the demise of the grizzly nearly a century ago. Bears learn fast and never forget, DFG biologists have learned.

Region 1 wardens and biologists have found that campers' ice chests often are visual attractants regardless of whether they emit a scent, which is the usual lure for bears. Many bears have learned that a red-and-white chest means food and they will break car windows to get at them.

"It makes you wonder if they have learned to read the words 'Coleman' and 'Igloo,' " said biologist Tim Burton.

Capt. Conger said the ability of a bear to learn and to apply its knowledge was made clear two years ago when a bear that appeared on the shoulder of Highway 101 found that motorists would stop and give it food. It wasn't long before the bear was venturing into the middle of the highway and stopping traffic to panhandle, he said.

And if that's not enough evidence of the black bear's enterprising nature, there is the case several years ago of a black bear in the Marble Mountains Wilderness Area of western Siskiyou County that did a Jesse James imitation on strings of pack animals carrying fishermen and hunters into the back country.

On at least three occasions reported to the DFG, guides leading horses and mules loaded with camping gear and food were intercepted at the same trail site by a black bear that would charge into the middle of the pack animals, scattering them in all directions and sending supplies tumbling down the mountain slope. The bear never actually attacked any of the animals. It was content to dislodge the packs so it could rummage through the strewn camping supplies for food after the packtrain was gone.