--- title: "Black bear eats a jar of honey inside a California library on Winnie-the-Pooh’s 100th birthday" url: https://badiyaa.com/bear-mammoth-lakes-library-honey-winnie-the-pooh-centennial/ published: 2026-10-18T13:14:00+01:00 modified: 2026-10-18T13:07:04+01:00 section: Pets & Animals publisher: Badiyaa --- # Black bear eats a jar of honey inside a California library on Winnie-the-Pooh’s 100th birthday The bear got into the Mammoth Lakes Library at 6:10 a.m. on October 14, ate peanut butter, peach cups and cookies from the staff shelf, and left without causing damage. A wild black bear let itself into the Mammoth Lakes Library in California at about 6:10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 14, close to four hours before opening time, and headed for the staff snack shelf. Before it wandered back out, it had eaten peanut butter, peach cups, cookies and a whole jar of honey, according to Josef Bopp, director of the Mono County Free Libraries. The date is what turned a routine Sierra bear call into an international story. October 14 marked exactly 100 years since A. A. Milne’s *Winnie-the-Pooh* first appeared in 1926, and a bear emptying a honey jar on that morning was a coincidence nobody could have staged. ## What the bear did inside Once the snacks were gone, the bear took a slow lap of the building. It passed the new releases display and the reference desk before letting itself out. Nothing was broken, and library staff said no shelves came down and no books were hurt. They also noted that the honey jar has not come back. Bopp answered with a librarian’s joke. “While we love an enthusiastic patron, and we understand the excitement of the centennial,” he said, “we do remind patrons- and perhaps more importantly our bears- that snacks are not part of the circulating collection.” The library turned the visit into an invitation: borrow *Winnie-the-Pooh* or another bear book from any of the seven Mono County branches. Its follow-up message was plainer. The bears in town are wild, and nobody should approach or feed one. ## Why October is bear season in town The timing fits the calendar of a bear’s year. The [California Department of Fish and Wildlife](https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Black-Bear) (CDFW) says black bears are especially driven by food during hyperphagia, the heavy-feeding phase before denning, and that bears in the state usually den in November or December, then lose 25 to 40% of their body weight while hibernating. A bear facing that kind of deficit will follow its nose to almost any source of calories, and the department lists honey, candy, pet food and garbage among the human foods it will take. California holds an estimated 49,000 to 71,000 black bears, a figure CDFW describes as stable for the past decade. The name misleads: many are cinnamon, tan or brown. Adult females typically weigh 100 to 300 pounds and adult males 150 to 400, and bears with access to human food often run heavier than their wild-fed neighbors. Mammoth Lakes sits in the middle of good bear country. The [town’s police department](https://townofmammothlakes.ca.gov/1304/Wildlife-Management) calls it prime black bear habitat and says officers deal with several bear situations inside town limits every year, most of them involving habituated bears looking for human food in town and in campgrounds. ## The rules in Mammoth Lakes Feeding wildlife is banned in town under Ordinance 6.20.010, which covers bears along with mountain lions, coyotes, raccoons, deer and squirrels. A first offense costs $100, a second within a year $200, and each one after that $500. At state level, knowingly feeding a bear can bring criminal penalties under Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations. The town’s advice for residents and visitors is practical: - Use latched, bear-resistant trash bins, put them out after 6 a.m. on collection day and bring them back in by 7 p.m. - Keep pet food indoors, take down bird feeders, clean barbecues and pick fruit before it ripens. - Shut garage doors and car windows, and leave no food or trash inside vehicles. - If you meet a bear, do not run. Stand facing it, make yourself look big, pick up small children and give it space to leave. A staff snack cupboard is exactly the kind of easy meal the town warns about, because a bear that finds food somewhere tends to remember the spot and return. That is the serious side of a funny week. CDFW notes that bears conditioned to human food can grow bolder and more destructive, and cubs that learn the habit from their mothers often grow into conflict bears themselves. ## The real black bear behind Pooh There is a fitting footnote to the centennial. The “Winnie” in Pooh’s name came from [Winnipeg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_(bear)), a female American black bear cub that Canadian army veterinarian Harry Colebourn bought for 20 Canadian dollars at a train stop in White River, Ontario, in August 1914. She lived at London Zoo from 1915 until her death in 1934, and Milne’s son Christopher Robin, a regular visitor from 1924, renamed his teddy bear after her. Bear sightings or encounters in Mammoth Lakes can be reported to police dispatch at 760-932-7549, option 7, or to 911 in an emergency. ## Further reading - [California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Black Bear](https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Mammals/Black-Bear) - [Town of Mammoth Lakes: Wildlife Management](https://townofmammothlakes.ca.gov/1304/Wildlife-Management) - [Wikipedia: Winnipeg (bear)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_(bear)) *Image: California Department of Fish and Wildlife, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*