A Bear of a Goal
Ninety years after the last one was hunted down and killed in the mountains near here, a big bear may finally be coming to Big Bear. Along with two baby bears.
Townspeople in this hamlet 80 miles east of Los Angeles are scurrying to build a $55,000 den so they can adopt a 600-pound grizzly and her two cubs before the animals have to be destroyed as “nuisance bears.”
The grizzlies have been living on borrowed time since last fall, when Montana wildlife officers caught them repeatedly raiding garbage cans and dude ranch cabins on national forest land just outside Yellowstone Park.
Officials had tried twice without success to relocate the bears to remote wilderness areas away from humans. On several occasions rangers used pepper spray and fired rubber bullets at the mother bear in hope of chasing her away. But the animals kept returning, becoming less scared of people at each encounter.
Faced with the choice of killing the bears or finding a place in captivity for them to live, wildlife officials temporarily sent them to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo while a nationwide search for a permanent home was launched.
Zoo officials warned that the three bears would have to leave by March 1, however. That’s when a long-planned zoo renovation project involving the demolition of an old bear pit where they were being housed was scheduled to start.
Until last month, things looked grim for the grizzlies. Previous placements of nuisance bears have caused a grizzly glut at major zoos and private animal parks around the country. No one could be found who was willing to accept responsibility for three bears that could live in captivity for 35 years or more.
But then the people of Big Bear stepped forward.
Operators of the community’s tiny Moonridge Animal Park volunteered Jan. 19 to take the animals if they could build a suitable grizzly enclosure before the animals had to be destroyed. Since then, residents have scrambled to come up with enough cash and building supplies to get the job done.
The mountain valley communities of Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City haven’t seen such a flurry of excitement since that day in 1906 when a ranger named Charlie Ficke shot the San Bernardino Mountains’ last grizzly over at Pine Bench.
On weekends, local construction workers gather at the three-acre animal park near the base of the Bear Mountain Ski Resort to work on the bears’ new 10,000-square-foot, tree-shaded enclosure.
A local paving company has volunteered to grade the hilly site; a pair of rival electrical contractors have offered to install electric lines for the new concrete bear dens and for the low-voltage electric fence that will help keep the bears inside. Other builders have promised concrete, 4,300 feet of steel bars and metal doors for the dens.
The fund-raising part of the grizzly campaign seems to involve nearly everybody in town.
Pupils at the area’s three elementary schools are collecting aluminum cans for the effort. The Grizzly Manor restaurant has agreed to donate a day’s receipts. The Bowling Barn has set aside its alleys for a bowl-a-thon for the bears. KBHR-FM has put local songwriter Art Harriman’s ballad “Plight of the Grizzly” into heavy rotation in its rock-music format.
Local public relations consultant Ann Bailey has volunteered to drum up interest from outside the mountain community. VoComm, a local phone-answering service, has created an Internet page to publicize the grizzly drive and has assigned operators to take contributions on special phone lines, (800) 843-9446, 24 hours a day.
Nearly every shop in town has a can next to its cash register soliciting donations and is selling bumper stickers reading “Grizzlies Come Home” and “Bring ‘Em Back Alive.”
Along Big Bear Boulevard, people can be spotted wearing $10 grizzly hats and $30 grizzly sweatshirts.
“There’s no doubt about it. We’re going to save those bears,” said Barbara Bennett, who has begun selling bear claw pastries at her Pine Knot Coffee House and donating profits from them to the cause.
All the $1 raffle tickets have been sold for a pine-log sculpture of the bears that Cottage Lane owner George Crezee commissioned from local carver Tom Beithan.
“You’ve got to print up some more,” urged Big Bear resident Bill McConnell, who stopped in to buy 20 more chances for the five-foot artwork. “I’m a supporter of endangered species. And this would look good on the deck in front of my house.”
As the grizzly fund neared the $40,000 mark, mountain residents Saturday were starting to feel confident that they can save the bears.
“We’re totally convinced we’ll do it,” said Big Bear Elementary School teacher Doug Parks, whose fifth-graders have raised about $500.
Don Richardson, curator of the 36-year-old Moonridge Animal Park, said he is stunned by the community’s response. Before taking over as head of the 58-animal zoo for the Big Bear Valley Recreation and Park District, he worked for 13 years as a senior animal keeper at the Los Angeles Zoo.
“I told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife people there would be a lot of interest in bringing history back here. But this has been an eye-opening experience,” said Richardson, 38.
Wildlife officials in Montana said they are relieved that Big Bear is coming to the grizzlies’ rescue.
Plans for its bear enclosure and security system sound top-notch, said Doug Zimmer, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service--the agency that must approve the new bear habitat before the grizzlies can be sent there.
“Our primary concern is that they’re treated in a humane manner and are adequately secured,” Zimmer said from Olympia, Wash. “They’re big animals that have a potential to do a tremendous amount of damage in a short time.”
Dianne Daley, a spokeswoman for an intergovernmental committee that coordinates grizzly relocations from the Northwest, said as few as 800 of the huge bears remain in the lower 48 states.
“We do everything we can to prevent a grizzly from having to be put down. But zoo space is at a premium. It’s getting harder and harder to place bears,” Daley said from Missoula, Mont.
Operators of Seattle’s zoo said they are prepared to give Big Bear residents more time if necessary to build their grizzly habitat. It now appears that the bear pit demolition can be delayed until summer, said Gigi Ogilvie, a spokeswoman for Woodland Park Zoo.
“For a while it looked grim for them. It looked like they might have to be euthanized,” she said of the grizzlies. “It looks like they’re no longer in danger of that.”
