An unbearable problem

It’s one of the oldest truisms in the forest: Please don’t feed the bears. But in many communities across California, that’s exactly what’s happening, sometimes with deadly consequences for the bears.

In the secluded Kern County enclave of Pine Mountain Club, Susie Kramer used to toss table scraps off the deck. For years, deer, raccoons, foxes and a coyote she nicknamed Wiley feasted on the garbage buffet.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” said Kramer, who moved to Pine Mountain Club with her husband, Brad, from Santa Clarita eight years ago.

Then the bears showed up. And they wouldn’t go away.

Kramer no longer chucks her trash. But some people here, knowingly or unwittingly, have been feeding the bears.

This year the mountain community has experienced a surge of “break-ins” -- black bears barging into houses or going through open doors. Up in the Lake Tahoe area, the Bear League, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting bears, reports that it gets between five and 20 calls a day about bears entering homes.

Experts say the increased activity has partly been caused by wildfires that have ravaged bear habitat. But also to blame are humans, who have helped raise generations of trash-addicted bears. In response, wildlife advocates are stepping up efforts to educate people about how to coexist with bears.

“They’re going from Mama’s milk to Grandma’s garbage,” said Elizabeth Bolden, co-founder of https://https: www.pmcbearawareness.com/index.php “> www.pmcbearawareness.com/index.php , a group launched in Pine Mountain Club two years ago.

Bear anecdotes abound in this community of about 2,900 households roughly 70 miles north of Los Angeles, where the forest envelops homes built on large lots. According to Bolden, one resident left chunks of watermelon and cantaloupe on the side of a road.

But few folks are willing to admit what they are doing.

“The black bear situation up here was don’t ask, don’t tell, and the black bear was the big white elephant right in the middle of town,” Bolden said.

For the Kramers, self-described animal lovers who rescue dogs as a hobby, the mother bear and two cubs that showed up in their yard were a novelty at first.

Once, a distraught cub clung to a tree, trapped by one of the Kramers’ golden retrievers yapping below. Susie Kramer grabbed the cub -- experts say never do this -- and pushed it over the yard fence. She thought the traumatic experience would keep the bears away.

Then one day she looked out at her deck.

“There was Mama Bear on one side of the glass sliding door, and my dogs on the other,” Kramer said.

The bear eventually took off. But the Kramers knew they had a problem. They hung nail-studded planks to trees near their home and attached electrified cattle wire to their fence.

The bears would “get shocked, and rip the fence down,” Brad Kramer said.

So the couple contacted Bolden.

The Kramers had cut down on tossing scraps; at Bolden’s urging, they stopped the practice altogether. They also bought a bear-proof trash can and an air horn to frighten the bears away. They used a nonlethal paintball gun to blast the bears when they got too close.

But other neighbors continue to leave out food, Kramer said, and the bear and her cubs were shot after entering a home.

Today, Susie Kramer feels terrible.

“I was actually giving the bear a death sentence,” she said. “I thought I was loving them by feeding them.”

She hopes others will learn from her mistake, as does Bolden, whose Bear Aware group is pushing an education campaign in this upscale community. As part of that effort, Bear League founder Ann Bryant recently came to town to offer advice to a standing-room-only audience at the clubhouse.

Bryant’s group started 10 years ago in Homewood, on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, after the area experienced a sudden surge in bear visits -- largely because of human behavior. This year, Bryant has given presentations in at least 50 California communities. And she has about 30 talks scheduled.

Last month, Bryant spoke at the Morongo Band of Mission Indians reservation near Palm Springs. It turned out that someone had been hiking into the woods for years and lovingly leaving pies for the bears.

When the bear-feeder died, five bears missed their grub and started coming to town.

Back at Pine Mountain Club, Bryant tried to dispel the myth that bears are “man-eating monsters.” She called them submissive and “nothing more than scared big chipmunks.”

(In August, a Kern County woman was injured and her dog killed by a bear; Bryant suggests it was probably startled or felt threatened.)

When bears appear ready to charge, they are usually bluffing, Bryant said. And when their noses drip, it’s their way of crying. To that the audience ooh-ed and aah-ed.

But the mood changed when officials from the Department of Fish and Game sought to explain the agency’s policies on destroying bears and issuing permits to residents to legally kill a bear.

A bear can be killed if it has damaged property, killed livestock or entered a home, and when corrective measures have failed, said Kevin O’Connor, wildlife management supervisor for the department’s central region.

“It’s not easy, because we don’t want to see animals killed,” he said.

Thomas A. Stenson, a lieutenant with the department, emphasized his agency’s duty to put public safety first.

“What about when it’s the person’s fault?” asked Suzy Goulart, a local of 20 years, as she related the story of a Lake Isabella resident who recently boasted in a TV report about shooting a bear after it came onto her porch to eat dog food.

“If you feel threatened, you have the right to protect yourself,” Stenson replied.

Under state law, feeding bears is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and/or a year in jail, according to Stenson. Offenders first receive a warning.

But most residents are getting the message, said Jerry Fossler, general manager of Pine Mountain Club Property Owners Assn. For example, after Mindy Moffatt heard a bear rustling under her porch, she stopped tossing trash off her deck and now stores organic garbage in the freezer until she can take it to the dump.

Harley Malloy and his father, Bill, don’t leave pet food out, but that didn’t stop a bear from tearing down part of a fence and trying to mount their deck recently. They pulled their golden retriever inside. Now Harley Malloy wonders about others in town.

“I think some kids up the street have made a pet out of a cub,” he said.

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ann.simmons@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Keeping bears at bay

* Never approach or touch a bear, especially a cub.

* Don’t leave out garbage, compost or pet food.

* Don’t use bird feeders during the summer bear season.

* Pick fruits before they ripen.

* Use heavy-duty, bear-proof trash cans.

* Keep accessible doors and windows locked.

* Mask food scents by spraying a cleaning product, such as Pine-Sol, around windows and doors.

* Scare bears away by blowing an air horn or banging pots and pans.

* For further information on bear-smart practices, visit Los Padres Bear Aware at www.lospadresbearaware.net or the Bear League at www.savebears.org.

Source: Bear League, Los Padres Bear Aware, California Department of Fish and Game