As Civilization Spreads Out, More Californians Are Loaded for Bear

Up here in the north woods, the run-ins start with the first scents of spring. Bears wake up, shake off the snow and follow their noses to food. Invariably, some get crossways with people, and pay dearly.

Nate McLaughlin shot a bear as it attacked the pigs at his homestead in the Klamath National Forest. Over in the Del Norte County redwoods, a bear tore the doors off the Yurok tribal office, and got taken out a few days later for its indiscretion.

Then there was the midnight prowler at Joe Marcantonio’s place in the north Sierra town of Downieville. Marcantonio flicked on the kitchen light to find himself nose-to-muzzle with a hulking male reared on its haunches, ears practically grazing the ceiling. The bear fled, but returned a few nights later to grab a 20-pound bag of cat food. Marcantonio shot him dead.

As never before, black bears in California are colliding with humankind, and the results are increasingly deadly for the beasts. Last year, state wildlife officials handed out a record 327 permits entitling homeowners to legally kill problem bears--those that have plundered property or posed an overt threat to humans. The outcome was the death of 151 bears, up from 65 killed a year earlier and just 14 back in 1983.

Oddly enough, the deaths are a byproduct of a wilderness success story. Their numbers once slipping, black bears have rebounded in recent decades and are now thriving, from North Coast forests to mountain ranges in Southern California. That population explosion, combined with the steady spread of civilization into the woods, has led to a sharp rise in conflicts.

The recent escalation of bear killings has stoked concern among some outback residents, particularly those in tourist enclaves such as Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Lakes. They urge state Fish and Game Department officials to more fully embrace nonlethal alternatives before giving permission to kill the animals.

State wildlife officials say a death warrant is the last resort for any problem bear. A homeowner must first take steps to clear out whatever attracted the animal, be it an unattended garbage can or unfenced orchard. Only if the invader continues to return and damage property, wildlife officials say, is a resident given the option of a permit to kill.

But a few California communities are taking matters into their own hands.

Police in Mammoth Lakes have enlisted outdoorsman Steve Searles and his arsenal of rubber bullets, pepper spray and pyrotechnic missiles to send bears lumbering back into the woods. To the north in Sierra County, the Sheriff’s Department has outfitted deputies with “bear kits” containing similar nonlethal ballistics to dish out a dose of tough love.

And in Homewood, a tidy thatch of houses hugging the northwest shore of Lake Tahoe, residents upset by the killing of a sow and her cub have formed the Bear Preservation League. The all-volunteer cadre serves as a rapid deployment force to soothe nerves and suggest remedies when a bear comes calling.

“It’s a gigantic task,” said Bob Malm, one of the group’s founders. “When I first moved here, I never saw any bears. Now I see them daily. I’ve watched the bear population just explode.”

The boom began more than a decade ago, when the state tightened rules for hunting bears. Numbering an estimated 15,000 statewide in the 1980s, the black bear population has now ballooned to about 25,000.

Street smart and gifted with a keen sense of smell, black bears can unscrew a mayonnaise jar to lick out the contents or stand on tiptoe to suck a hummingbird feeder dry. Combining such dexterity with awesome strength, they can peel the door off a car if the scent of food wafts from inside. (At Yosemite National Park, rangers say the bears prefer Hondas and Toyotas.)

Black bears are more docile than their cousin, the grizzly, and their attacks on people are rare. But once a bear equates a particular neighborhood, homestead or restaurant dumpster with chow time, they are like any creature of habit, returning again and again for a meal.

Some people are easy marks, leaving a full dog food bowl on the back deck or putting a trash can in ready reach. At vacation spots, scofflaws invite trouble by purposely setting out food to lure bears within photo range.

“A bear problem usually is a people problem,” said Don Koch, state Fish and Game northern regional manager. Game wardens and park rangers have an old saying: A fed bear is a dead bear. Once the animals get acquainted with human food, the habit is hard to break, Koch said. “Rubber bullets aren’t going to keep them away,” he added.

In McCloud, just south of Mt. Shasta, sanitation officials put an end to the nightly feast at the local dump by switching to bear-proof garbage containers. But the move backfired. Stomachs growling, the bears began targeting homes instead.

Up in Happy Camp, an isolated spot near the Oregon border, a bear tore into a storage area at Double-J Sports and Spirits last month to get at a garbage dumpster. “It’s not uncommon at 3 or 4 in the morning to see a bear walking right down the street in Happy Camp,” said Jake Bushey, a Fish and Game warden. The only foolproof solution he has found is to string up an electric fence. The high-voltage shock sends a bear packing.

Until about a decade ago, state game wardens typically trapped an offending bear and moved it to more remote territory. It was a feel-good policy for everyone except the bear.

Wildlife experts discovered that bears often return to their old haunts or fight bloody battles with rivals in new territory. The relocation strategy also took a toll on California’s small circle of game wardens. Some spent entire summers doing little more than trapping and releasing bears.

In the early 1990s, Koch and other Fish and Game officials shifted their policy, putting the onus on homeowners. No longer would an offending animal be relocated. Instead, the homeowner was given the option of a permit to kill a bear that continued to pose a threat. Some rural counties even provide trappers for homeowners who lack gun or gumption.

Still, faced with a lethal solution, most people balk.

“When all of a sudden it became the homeowner having to snuff out the bear instead of Fish and Game hauling it off--out of sight, out of mind--it changed things,” Koch said. “We’re able to talk a lot of people out of even getting a permit.”

It didn’t happen that way in Homewood.

Last summer, a bear named Natalie by neighbors came around most evenings with two cubs in tow. But then a vacationer on a two-week escape from Pasadena fingered the animal for a classic ursine crime: damaging the cellar door in search of a garbage can.

Fish and Game officials say they followed protocol and gave the visitor a kill permit after the bear hit the cabin twice. A government trapper caught and euthanized the mother bear and one cub by lethal injection. The other cub scampered away.

When residents stopped growling with anger about the death, they formed the Bear Preservation League. The group has attracted more than 100 volunteers and has big plans.

They got together with former adversaries at Fish and Game to craft an agreement giving the league first crack at homeowners troubled by bears. Members are already making house calls to suggest remedies, from deodorizing garbage cans to playing rap music, which most bears hate.

“It’s like homeowners are baiting them,” said Ann Bryant, one of the group’s leaders. “They feel welcome and safe in a neighborhood, then they’re trapped and killed. That rubs everybody wrong.”

Though the group is studying the use of pyrotechnics and rubber bullets, some members are uncomfortable with the notion of shooting anything at living creatures. Leaders are raising money to buy a pack of Russian-bred Karelian bear dogs, which can be trained to harass bears back into the wild.

Ultimately, the league hopes to win stricter garbage rules for the region, possibly requiring bear-proof dumpsters and residential trash containers. Members also want to target tourists by posting educational material in rental cabins.

But right now the group’s most daunting challenge is Oliver.

He is Natalie’s surviving cub. Bryant, an animal rehabilitation specialist, found him howling like a baby at the top of a tree. Fearing he would be killed, she took in the cub. Attempts to find a zoo to adopt Oliver failed, so Bryant raised him on nuts, produce donated by a local grocery store and crawdads caught by children.

In so doing, she and the league were breaking some of the cardinal rules they want to help enforce. Fish and Game officials were hardly pleased but didn’t press the case. This winter, Bryant got the little bear to hibernate in a den she found up on a ridgeline above Homewood. He emerged a few weeks ago looking fit.

Now it is time for the 18-month-old to return to the wild. Bryant plans to act like a mother bear and push him away, hopefully far up into the forest to start a new life away from civilization.

Ken Nilsson, a Fish and Game lieutenant whose patrol region includes Homewood, sees some urgency.

“They should be doing everything they say they can do to hassle him into not wanting to stick around Homewood,” Nilsson said. “And they better do it quick. When the tourists come Memorial Day with all their garbage, if he hasn’t learned to go back up on the hill and stay there, it’s going to be a problem.”

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A Bear for Punishment

Their numbers growing, bears are colliding with humans like never before--often with deadly results for the animals.