Bold bear family joins stunned beachgoers for a picnic

These bears at a Lake Tahoe beach are boldy going where so many bears are known to go — rooting through a picnic basket.

Mama bear and her three cubs appeared on the shore of South Lake Tahoe, California, on a sunny Sunday, June 27, when dozens of beachgoers swam and frolicked in the sand and worked up their afternoon appetites, to be sure.

But one visitor would have to find lunch elsewhere as their belongings were ransacked by the hungry bears.

The victim, who had been kayaking on the lake while the real action went down on land, managed to capture footage of the bears sniffing through stuff — all while swimmers waded in, waiting, hoping the bears would soon be on their way.

“We are local and not new to bear activity, so quickly got up and backed away as we knew they were heading straight for our food,” the anonymous source told Storyful.

They tried to shoo the bears away by shouting, but the hungry beasts were “undeterred and focused on going through our remaining items,” they said.

“We thought to just leave them alone and let them go on about their business and allow them to leave on their own,” they added.

That bears love a good picnic is well known by Post readers, as we’ve come to regularly report on the hungry lives of bruins. Last summer, one brave family coolly finished their meals as a full-grown bear sat at the bench beside them, noshing on their leftovers.

While it seems ludicrous to share a table with a bear, the family behaved just as some experts would recommend — by moving very slowly and with non-threatening motions. Running is a bad call, as adult bears are known to sprint at speeds between 20 and 30 miles per hour. But if a bear insists on sticking by your side, the National Park Service says to “stop and hold your ground” until they’ve cleared the area — presumably, after finishing all of your granola bars.

Such an occurrence could just as quickly turn deadly as the ferocious creatures are liable to make a meal out of people, too, as in one tragic story from September 2020, in which park rangers at the Great Smoky Mountains came upon a bear feeding on the corpse of a missing hiker.