With bears waking up from hibernation and traipsing through San Gabriel Valley foothill community backyards, school yards and streets, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger on Tuesday, June 4 demanded better responses from state wildlife officials to deal with potentially dangerous bear-human encounters.
In a unanimous vote, the full board approved Barger’s motion asking the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to add more staffers specializing in bear-human encounters and decrease response times. In addition, the motion says the CDFW’s statewide approach does not meet the specific needs of Sierra Madre, Monrovia and other San Gabriel Valley communities. The motion calls for a targeted, regional response plan.
The proximity of foothill communities to the Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument increases the incidents in which bears — as well as bobcats and mountain lions — invade homes, parks, school grounds and even downtown shopping areas.
Large mammals are leaving the forest in search of food and water, according to the motion, resulting in bears entering homes and in a few cases attacking residents.
“This has resulted in an increase in human-wildlife ‘conflicts,’ where interactions between residents and the natural habitat may result in unsafe or unwanted encounters,” the motion concluded.
“Specifically, the city of Sierra Madre has seen a surge of black bears in their community and adjoining communities, with a few troubling reports of attacks, bites, injuries, and property damage,” the motion added.
In 2019, an 83-year-old transient man sleeping outdoors near Chantry Flat, a rural camping and picnic area, was attacked by a bear that scratched his face and arm. In 2020, DNA tests confirmed that the same bear bit a woman from Sierra Madre who was sleeping in her backyard.
The Sierra Madre Police reported 130 calls about black bears in residential areas in 2022. Of those calls, 17 were cases of bears actually entering someone’s home. In 2023, the overall calls almost tripled to 307.
In April 2023, the Sierra Madre City Council declared the mismanagement of local black bears in the region “a threat to public safety.” It was one of the only cities to approve such a declaration, showing the city’s frustration. The city also has implemented a Wildlife Incident Reporting (WIR) system, enacted a local ordinance prohibiting feeding, and started a local Wilderness Management Plan.
While bear sightings sharply decreased during the winter, they began to pick up in April, May and this month, said Sierra Madre Police Sgt. Charles Kamchamnan, a 30-year veteran of the police force who has seen his share of bear encounters.
“In the last month, we have started again to get calls regarding bear sightings,” Kamchamnan said on Tuesday, June 4. “We have had calls of bears in backyards or just walking down the street.”
From March 1 to June 4 the Sierra Madre Police Department received 91 calls about bear sightings. So far, none of those sightings involved a bear entering a residence, Kamchamnan said. The last bear sighting in Sierra Madre was Monday, June 3.
About a month ago, a bear entered the grounds of the Sierra Madre Middle School. The bear walked by classrooms and the baseball fields, he said. As a result, the school, plus the Sierra Madre Elementary School, were placed on lockdown for more than an hour, he said.
Most of the time, the police cajole the bears back into the woods. When a bear won’t move — say it has climbed a tree — they will call CDFW. The state wildlife agency can tranquilize the bear and relocate it, he said.
On Friday, May 24, a bear broke into a Monrovia home and was captured on video leaving with a pack of Oreo cookies in its mouth. A week before, neighbors told ABC-7 a smaller bear broke into their car and pawed through groceries, also leaving with a package of Oreos.
“For the last 10 years, particularly the bears, have become more bold and have assumed more territories as their own,” neighbor Dominic Sbicca told the TV station.
The motion approved by the supervisors criticized the responses from CDFW. The motion said the state is too slow in responding. Also, “there are only a few CDFW wildlife specialists who must cover hundreds of miles of territory.”
The motion asks that CDFW “augment” its program “in order to protect the residents of Sierra Madre and numerous other communities in Los Angeles County that experience both the beauty and the threat of our wildlife neighbors.”
Black bears — the only bear species found in California since grizzly bears became extinct in the state in the early 1900s — are generally non-confrontational and prefer not to interact directly with humans or most pets.
Black bears,Ursus americanus, are not native to Southern California. About 30 black bears were brought into the region from Yosemite National Park in the 1930s, the National Park Service reported. From that initial group, they grew and spread, biologists said.
SCNG staff writer Georgia Valdes contributed to this article.
