Bears’ Suburban Visits Expected, Experts Say : Wildlife: Sitings of the lumbering animals seeking food or mates are not uncommon at this time of year.

Raging hormones, the search for food and animals’ basic instinct to wander their territory may be behind two incidents in which bears roamed out of the forest to the edge of suburbia.

While the visits from the California black bears--one had a deadly encounter with police officers in Azusa on May 20 and another took a more tranquil jaunt in Agua Dulce a week ago--may be disturbing to residents of the foothills near the Angeles National Forest, wildlife experts say such sojourns by the lumbering animals are not uncommon, particularly at this time of year. When they aren’t in deep sleep, bears’ lives revolve around eating and procreating.

“You have bears that have come out of hibernation. They’re looking for food and they’re breeding,” said Larry Sitton, a senior biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game.

Sitton said his office typically receives 10 to 20 reports of bear sightings a year in neighborhoods and other areas outside their usual habitat. “I’ve been here seven years and every year during this time we have bears showing up in areas that are unlikely. They come into the edges of cities and cause some brouhaha.”

Such was the case last Sunday, when a bear wandered into Agua Dulce, rattling nerves in the sparsely populated community nestled between the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Residents remained a bit nervous last Monday, keeping a close watch on their children and making sure their trash cans were securely shut to deter bears from rummaging for food. They said there are plenty of animals in the surrounding hills--raccoons, snakes, coyotes and mountain lions--but for many, the bear sighting was a first.

The bear, whose weight was estimated at 250 pounds, was spotted near Agua Dulce School and made its way into a back yard. Although the noise and dust created by a low-flying Sheriff’s Department helicopter at one point chased the bear back into the foothills, it showed up in a nearby mobile home park about an hour later.

The gun-wielding manager of the Hacienda Vasquez Mobile Home Park on Agua Dulce Canyon Road pursued the bear for about 15 minutes on foot before it again disappeared into the foothills.

Michelle Smith said her husband, Ian, had the .45-caliber handgun at the ready in case of trouble. “He was more concerned with it getting the kids than it getting him,” she said. “It wasn’t aggressive.”

Agua Dulce School teachers were briefed about the incident and asked to tell their students to be cautious, said Principal Carol Urban. She said officials closed a gate between the school and a field, but no other precautions were taken.

In the Azusa incident, a police officer spotted a 350-pound bear in the middle of a road. The bear wandered into a cul-de-sac and, after two tranquilizer darts failed to bring it down, headed toward town. Officers with 12-gauge shotguns pumped 14 rounds into the bear, killing it.

Bill Brown, a biologist with the Angeles National Forest, said most bears avoid people. Nonetheless, they can be deadly. A mother bear, he noted, will attack someone who gets between her and her cubs, although he could not recall such an incident occurring in or near the national forest.

“Keep your distance because they can kill you,” he said. “Try to make yourself as big as possible and do a lot of screaming and yelling. You don’t want to try and outrun one because you will not be successful.”

Glenn Stewart, a zoology professor at Cal Poly Pomona who has studied California black bears since 1970, said yearling bears chased off by their mothers are the ones that most often end up outside the forests, although it was uncertain if the bears in Azusa or Agua Dulce were yearlings.

“They’re kind of on their own,” he said. “They haven’t established a home range so they wander.”

Experts said food probably brought the bears into the communities.

They estimated that 60 to 200 black bears in the 650,000-acre Angeles National Forest typically begin their annual hibernation with enough body fat to supply nutrients through the winter and spring, although the bears will awaken and rummage for food if they get hungry.

Said Sitton: “Whenever they find a source of food like garbage from a neighborhood that offers them a real reliable food source, they’re reluctant to move on.”

Bears mainly eat vegetation, but Stewart said this year’s light rains may have made that food supply less plentiful, which may cause a higher than normal number of bear sightings in developed foothill areas. Bears can smell food miles away.

But it’s not just food or wandering that have the bears out and about.

“It’s breeding season,” Sitton said. “The males are a little crazy right now. They tend to wander a lot more looking for females. The more they wander, the more likely they are to bump into neighborhoods.”

And Agua Dulce residents are preparing for just that.

Mobile home park manager Smith said she spent last Monday morning spraying the trash cans at the park with a combination of cayenne pepper, bleach and Tabasco sauce, hoping the odor would keep bears away. She also kept a watchful eye on her 3-year-old daughter, Ashley.

Armando Melendez, a resident at the park for two years, said his family is taking no chances. He said his 7-year-old nephew, Luis, normally walks to Agua Dulce School across the street, but on last Monday the boy was driven. Melendez’s 3-year-old daughter, Ruth, and niece, Marlee, 2, were being kept under close watch at the house.

“Of course we’re really scared, because we have kids,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s a dangerous bear or a nice one.”

Not everyone was as concerned.

Denise Rex, a Lancaster resident examining sites at Smith’s mobile home park, said the thought of bears in the area may make her more likely to move there.

“That would be cool,” she said, “because I like wildlife.”