3 bear cubs break into man's San Bernardino County mountain cabin

A man had a close encounter with a trio of bears that broke into his cabin in the San Bernardino County mountains.

After hearing his little, old hard-of-hearing dogs barking, Thomas Vander Wende woke up and went outside his cabin at Green Valley Lake. That's when he came face-to-face with a bear cub crawling down a tree in front of his cabin at Green Valley Lake and making wild, throaty moans.  

"I saw a silhouette of a bear just above my head," he said. "I was bare butt too. So, I didn't want to hang around and talk to this bear."

Wende ran back inside his home, only to realize that at least two bears had already broken into his home.

"We catch the little culprits, the bandits, trying to shimmy down the tree, trying to get away from their crime," Wende said. 

He said his teenage son started screaming that a bear had crawled through his second-floor window. They raided Wende's loft and were sniffing around their guinea pig enclosure. 

Luckily, the cubs were only after the dry food and did not hurt the guinea pigs. 

"They did a bear home invasion," Wende said. "In our home, where we sleep."

The encounter got Wende's adrenaline going, but once he lit the bear burglars up with a flashlight, they slowly ambled out of the home while he heard a strange sound in the distance. 

Wende believes it was the bear's mother making some distress calls or scolding them for their mischievous behavior. 

"They're teens. She's probably having a hard time with them," he said. 

Wende said he's glad the unusual encounter ended in the best possible way, knowing the potential dangers if the cubs became trapped inside and their mother bear came looking for them. 

"They look like they're in the 'I'm getting in trouble stage," Wende said. "Mom's probably having a hard time keeping track of them."