San Gabriel Valley : Bear Captured Near Homes in Glendora Hills

For 10 days, a 250-pound black bear eluded police in Glendora, wandering through back yards looking for food.

He was finally caught Tuesday--but the capture was far from dramatic and the bear was hardly acting ferocious. He was curling up to sleep under some bushes in a back yard on East Sierra Madre Avenue.

“He came down a little too far and decided to stay until it got light out,” said Rhonda Reynolds, the city’s animal control officer. “He’s not out to hurt anyone.”

The bear--nicknamed Scar for markings on his flanks--was tranquilized and taken to Wildlife Waystation, an animal shelter in Tujunga Canyon.

“The bear apparently is quite old,” Reynolds said. “He’s coming down for some easy grub.”

A police officer spotted Scar in the Hicrest neighborhood last week, and tried to scare him off by shooting rubber slugs. The slugs are supposed to discourage bears from returning, but didn’t work.

Tom Paegel, a resident of Hicrest Road, said that he has seen the bear about half a dozen times in the past two weeks and warned it off with a garden hose.

“The poor guy is just hungry,” said Paegel, who runs a local antiques business. The bear was first lured to his home when his family threw out a cake.

Let him eat berries. Scar will be taken to Mt. Baldy, where he will have to settle for the vittles of the wild. Unless he remembers the way back to Glendora, where life is a piece of cake.