Police and wildlife officers had been bombarded for weeks with studies of bears barging into houses in Sierra Madre, smashing home windows and slashing display doorways.
So the California Division of Fish and Wildlife determined to kill the 300-pound feminine bear believed to be the perpetrator. State biologists arrange a entice and the bear quickly lumbered into it.
The bear was tranquilized and later shot and killed final month after wildlife personnel confirmed that they had the proper bear — a name primarily based on a particular patch of fur on her again. The bear additionally had blood on her paws, an indication she had damaged glass.
Break-ins dropped off after the bear was put down, however Sierra Madre officers say their ursine troubles are removed from resolved.
A bear believed to be behind a spike in dwelling break-ins in Sierra Madre walks alongside a road. Wildlife officers say a particular patch of fur on the bear’s again helped them establish it.
Sierra Madre, Claremont, Monrovia and different communities nestled just under the San Gabriel Mountains are a scorching spot for human-bear battle studies. Some say the Eaton fireplace has worsened the state of affairs, driving bears whose habitat was charred into neighborhoods to hunt meals and water.
“With the fires, the weather and the dryness and heat, they’re coming down,” mentioned Lt. Charles Kamchamnan of the Sierra Madre Police Division.
Native representatives for years have blasted the Fish and Wildlife Division for mismanaging black bears and demanded the company mitigate what they describe as a public security menace. However they are saying nothing has modified.
The truth is, the state reduce all of its human-wildlife battle specialists in Southern California after funding ran dry final 12 months. Native leaders have began discussing what steps they will tackle their very own.
“We need to figure this out before someone gets seriously maimed or killed, and before people start taking measures into their own hands and go bear hunting,” mentioned Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena). “We don’t want that. And I’ll tell you, people are at a tipping point.”
Sierra Madre spans simply three sq. miles nestled into the wrinkled hills, with some houses perched proper within the mountains. Distinguished trails, together with one to Mt. Wilson, enable wild animals to amble down immediately into the group of 11,000.
What tack to take with the bears stays a matter of disagreement. Some are calling for extra forceful intervention, whereas others argue that folks have to be higher at securing trash and lowering different bear attractants.
A bumper sticker on Michelle Tremblay’s automotive in Sierra Madre. Tremblay is the president of Bear Lovers of Sierra Madre, a nonprofit that seeks to retains bears and folks protected by means of training.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)
The way it began, the way it’s going
California is dwelling to roughly 60,000 black bears, the best inhabitants estimate for wherever within the contiguous U.S. However black bears are a surprisingly current phenomenon within the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.
In 1933, 27 bears “whose antics got them kicked out” of Yosemite Nationwide Park had been set unfastened in Southern California, The Occasions reported. Eleven furry, four-legged transplants had been launched close to Crystal Lake northeast of Sierra Madre, whereas six had been dispatched close to Massive Bear Lake and 10 in Santa Ana Canyon.
Folks with deep native roots say bear battle has solely grow to be a difficulty in recent times.
A bear-resistant trash can in Sierra Madre. “There’s a lot of support for bears in the city,” Mayor Robert Parkhurst mentioned. “There’s a lot of interest and willingness to live with bears, to coexist with them, but we’ve begun to see some increase in intrusions.”
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)
Sierra Madre Metropolis Councilman Gene Goss mentioned bear sightings had been a rarity when he moved to the realm in 1996. Harabedian mentioned there’s been an “exponential rise” in bear exercise in San Gabriel Valley cities over simply the previous decade.
This June, Sierra Madre noticed a surge in bears coming into houses. There have been 41 intrusions that month — an unlimited leap from the one recorded in 2023, the 12 months police started monitoring bear incidents in earnest, in response to a presentation at a July 8 Metropolis Council assembly by Sierra Madre Police Chief Gustavo Barrientos. There have been 37 break-ins all through all of final 12 months, with 13 in June.
Residents of town’s canyon space have taken to affixing wooden items and bars over their home windows to forestall bears from tearing by means of, Mayor Professional Tem Kristine Lowe mentioned on the particular assembly. Her in-laws have put in steel sheet grates over theirs, marking a “huge cost” for mitigation. Metropolis Atty. Aleks Giragosian mentioned final 12 months that native bears had realized to open doorways, “like ‘Jurassic Park.’”
Black bear assaults are uncommon, however officers expressed fears that somebody might get damage as bear run-ins enhance.
Goss recounted an occasion two years in the past when his son, taking pictures hoops within the yard, noticed a bear charging him. It had been spooked by neighbors who had been making noise to shoo it away. Goss’ son moved out of the best way, and it ended up in one other property, the place younger youngsters are sometimes enjoying.
“What do panicked animals do if you block their path or if you move suddenly?” he mentioned. “There’s just so many things here that potentially could go wrong.”
In 31 years on the Sierra Madre police power, Lt. Kamchamnan recollects three incidents the place bears assaulted individuals, together with a hiker who was attacked by two bears. In one other occasion, a bear maimed the hand of a person dwelling within the Chantry Flat space of the Angeles Nationwide Forest. The unhoused man instructed Kamchamnan he was making an attempt to place a leash on the hefty creature.
Generally native police will scare bears out of residents’ houses with air horns or projectiles that launch an irritant akin to pepper spray, however they’re legally restricted in what they will do. Fish and Wildlife is primarily accountable for managing the hulking mammals, together with making the decision to maneuver or euthanize them.
“Somebody up there is taking huge risks by not taking this problem more seriously,” Goss mentioned of state wildlife officers on the July assembly.
Peter Tira, a spokesperson for CDFW, mentioned his company for years has labored with native officers to deal with town’s bear points — and can proceed to take action.
“We want healthy bear populations that stay wild and don’t come into conflict with people,” he mentioned. “So we’re all working towards the same goal.”
However he mentioned the buck doesn’t cease with the company.
“The solution to human-bear conflicts rests with individuals and the community,” Tira mentioned, including that the secret’s stopping entry to trash, pet meals, fruit bushes — any meals match for a bear’s palate. “It’s really not super complicated.”
Simmering pressure and funding hassle
The Sierra Madre Metropolis Council handed a decision in 2023 demanding that the state wildlife company appropriate what it known as its mismanagement of native bears.
A 12 months later, the Los Angeles County Supervisors known as on the company to create a regional strategy to addressing human-bear interactions to guard Sierra Madre and close by areas and to rent extra human-wildlife battle specialists. As a substitute, state officers let go of all however one in all its 13 battle positions after one-time funding expired, citing funds cuts.
A statewide program stays that enables individuals to report incidents that “go right to our biologist, right to the closest person who can deal with those issues,” Tira mentioned.
Some Sierra Madre officers pointed to the uptick in bear intrusions this 12 months as a potential results of dropping the battle specialist who served town. They’re not relying on a extra robustly staffed state wildlife company anytime quickly.
Sierra Madre Mayor Robert Parkhurst has scheduled an Aug. 8 workshop for mayors alongside the foothills to debate what will be accomplished. There have been early-stage talks about creating an intergovernmental authority and pooling cash from numerous cities within the area to fund their very own native wildlife battle specialists, Goss mentioned.
Nevertheless, just like the state, many cities are dealing with strained budgets. And creating such an authority would take time, testing the persistence of residents who’re demanding motion now.
Harabedian, one-time Sierra Madre mayor, doesn’t see native authorities profitable the day on bears. He launched laws this 12 months that may have required CDFW to ascertain measurable efficiency objectives for lowering bear encounters within the San Gabriel Valley, in addition to tag and monitor any bears that entered neighborhoods within the area, amongst different issues.
CDFW estimated that the hassle would price $3.7 million for the 2026-27 fiscal 12 months and $2.9 million for the next fiscal 12 months and past. The invoice died within the meeting’s appropriations committee, however Harabedian vowed to deliver it again in some type.
State wildlife officers “had a long time to come up with the answers, and they haven’t come up with it,” he mentioned. “So I think that we need to have a real impetus and real fire under the department.”
The hand that feeds
People have moved deeper into wildlands the place bears stay, whereas the ursids have equally expanded into areas the place they had been absent or scarce. Battle has elevated together with spatial overlap, with most incidents involving “the intersection of black bears and attractants, such as food, garbage and livestock,” in response to a state black bear administration plan.
Sierra Madre resident Michelle Tremblay opens her bear-resistant, locking trash can. She mentioned current surveys counsel roughly 50% of residents aren’t latching them.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)
Throughout the peak of the current surge in break-ins in Sierra Madre, a person was leaving out a complete rotisserie rooster on his garden to feed ravens, mentioned Michelle Tremblay, president of Bear Lovers of Sierra Madre, a nonprofit that seeks to maintain bears and folks protected by means of training. Others in the neighborhood have not noted water to assist coyotes, birds and “any poor wildlife” left excessive and dry by the Eaton fireplace, she mentioned.
Sierra Madre has particular locking trash cans to discourage bears, however Tremblay says current surveys she’s carried out counsel roughly half of the residents don’t latch them.
Tremblay, who’s enthralled by bears, is torn by how you can take care of bears that, say, ventured into a house however haven’t harmed a soul. She hopes bear specialists will provide you with a nonlethal answer.
“They’re a very important part of the ecosystem and the natural world, and it breaks my heart to see that a healthy bear would be put down because now they’re categorized as a conflict bear,” Tremblay mentioned. “But I also realize we don’t want to wait until somebody is hurt.”
Someday in Might whereas on a stroll, Tremblay noticed a large bear on a hillside — one she thinks may very well be the one killed by authorities final month. It peered down at her. She sounded a bear horn, however it didn’t reply. Then she yelled and it walked away.
She didn’t take a photograph; she by no means snaps photographs of bears.
“If I see a bear, I will just soak in that 15 or 20 seconds and marvel at how beautiful they are,” she mentioned.
Then, if the bear is in her yard, she is going to attempt to scare it away.
