Les Lamas Hispanique

For lack of a better name, let's call them "The Ben and Jerry's Gang." And, beware! They're still on the loose in the Red Lodge area, terrorizing homes.

The gang is made up of black bears that do not travel together, but have all discovered that there are goodies to be consumed inside houses, if only they can get inside. And the break-ins, apparently, haven't been too difficult.

"There could be three bears. There could be four bears," said Shawn Stewart, wildlife biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks at Red Lodge. "Those, of course, are only the house-entering bears. We've got a lot of other bears in town every night, too."

Stewart said there have been 15 break-ins by gang members in the past two weeks, including eight in two days spread from Rock Creek north to Fox, the West Fork of Rock Creek, the Red Lodge golf course and points in between.

"One of the favorite entries is casement windows - the crank-out windows," he said. "If people leave them open a little bit, the bears crank them open from the outside - they just grab it and give it a little tug.

"Several of the bears have just walked in the front door. If you've got a lever handle, instead of the round door handle, they're very good with those. Round handles, they can't handle," Stewart added. "We had one door the other night that just had a push-button handle. The bear was feeling his way around and hit the push-button just right. If the door's not locked, they can get in.

"And the bears have a really good time when they get inside. Refrigerators are wonderful things, and they clean them out. Cupboards are a wonderful thing, and they clean them out," he said. "One family had just been to Costco, and literally everything that was bought at Costco went down the bears. The muffins? Cleaned them up. The teriyaki chicken? Cleaned it up. The cherries? Cleaned them up.

"What the guy was most upset about was the Ben & Jerry's ice cream. He really likes Ben & Jerry's ice cream and the bear just licked it ALL up. It was all gone," Stewart said. "The man did not see the humor in it. At least, not that day."

Stewart noted that not all bears get in and not all bears are allowed to stick around and visit if the homeowners are inside.

"One bear was heard knocking rather loudly. He was pounding on the door. That was a solid-core door, and it didn't give, and he did not get in," he said. "At a number of the homes, the people have been there when the bear went into the house. They just run him back out. The bear hasn't been rewarded much.

"The bears have shown no aggression toward people. They're just in there trying to get food," he added. "And, for the most part, they go out the same way they went in. In years past, we've had them break one window going in and break another going out. But Kevin Nichols went to one house on Thursday night where the bear really trashed the house."

Stewart and Nichols, the game warden for FWP in Red Lodge, have traps in place and are trying to catch the Ben and Jerry's Gang, but so far, no gang members have been incarcerated for their crimes of breaking-and-entering-and-eating.

"We have had bear traps set north

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