Valley Perspective : Zoned for the Hunt, but Bear-ly : Parts of the Valley continue to fall within the Department of Fish and Game’s designated areas--not that you’ll be needing your sporting gear.

“B’ar meat is the best meat in the mountains. Their skins make the best beds and their grease the best butter. Biscuits shortened with b’ar grease goes as far as beans. A man will walk all day on a couple of them biscuit.”

That revelation--obviously uttered before clogged arteries were invented--should send a shiver of anticipation through every inhabitant of the San Fernando Valley in view of the even better news to follow here. The ringing testimonial was delivered by David Brown, a California mountain man, to John Muir, pioneer naturalist, writer and founder of the Sierra Club. The time was way back in the late 1800s--but so what? An Eternal Truth is an Eternal Truth.

The “even better news” is that the section of the Valley that lies west of the San Diego Freeway continues to fall within the boundaries of hunting zone A as designated by the California Department of Fish and Game, and the section east of the San Diego Freeway and northeast of the Golden State Freeway remains in Fish and Game’s hunting zone D-11.

The stunning significance of this is that during the 1999 California bear season, which began Aug. 14 in zone A and will open Oct. 9 in D-11, Valleyites have Fish and Game’s go-ahead to lawfully go bear hunting in such places as Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Granada Hills, Encino, Northridge, Pacoima and Van Nuys!

I’m talking places like downtown Van Nuys and the Ventura Boulevard main stem here. You don’t believe me? You can look it up in the regulations.

So much for the good news. The bad news centers on why I just referred to “bear hunting,” not “bear finding.” There’s a difference, which will be discovered by anyone who tries to detect and follow bear “sign” (as we outdoor types call it) in, say, Panorama City along Roscoe Boulevard.

Note also that other expressions I refrain from using here are “can’t miss,” “sure thing” and “money in the bank.” They have no place in a guide to bear hunting in the Valley. In other words, you can do your hunting in the Valley with the blessing of Fish and Game, but whether or not you can tree a bear in Panorama City is strictly your problem.

Also strictly your problem are the ordinances that prohibit things like discharging a firearm within the city limits, and like the loosing of said discharge at a bear doing the breaststroke in a swimming pool. Swimming bears make headlines in the Valley from time to time, and these backyard invaders have a special untouchable status for the Valley bear hunter. If you spot one you may call Fish and Game or the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation or, if the bear is going down for the third time, the Fire Department paramedics, of course. But don’t call for your native gun-bearer.

Realistically, since your chance of bear hunting success in the Valley is about the same as your chance of getting an invitation to the Pope’s wedding, maybe it’s worth considering what it is you’ll be missing by going bearless.

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Well, for one thing--if David Brown is to believed--you’ll miss out on a great substitute in case you run short of cream cheese for your bagels. As for the bear meat itself, starving explorers such as the Spaniards who passed through the Valley in 1769 with Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero Serra (but weren’t starving until they reached Pismo Beach) found bear meat to be yummy. But beware. To a starving explorer, almost anything is yummy. More significant is the fact that even Mountain Man Brown, with all of his praise of b’ars, couldn’t bring himself to state, “They taste just like chicken.”

It’s questionable, incidentally, whether John Muir ever bought Brown’s pro-bear meat spiel. Intoxicated always by the grandeur and solitude of the mountain vastnesses he explored, Muir wasn’t much concerned about food on his solo wanderings and always did that style of mountaineering mainly on oatmeal.

Now a final suggestion in case you’re skunked at bagging a bear in the Valley: A determined hunter or huntress may be able to corner one on Rodeo Drive. The fact is that Beverly Hills, in zone D-11, is bear country, too--but who needs more controversy? For heaven’s sake don’t tell them!