Bear keeps coming back for more

A black bear with a hankering for meatballs returned to a North Glendale hillside neighborhood early Saturday morning, but this time he wasn’t reported dipping into trash cans or getting into people’s refrigerators.

The bear was spotted at 2:50 a.m. in yards on the 3700 block of Cedarbend Drive and again at 6 a.m. on the 3900 block of Forestglen Drive by a newspaper delivery man, said Glendale Police Sgt. Dan Suttles.

“He’s getting more and more bold,” Suttles said, adding that when officers arrived on the scene both times, the bear was gone.

The bear tends to run away when it sees people, according to California Department of Fish and Game officials who have been monitoring the reportedly 250-pound bear.

The bear was first spotted in March eating Costco meatballs and tuna from a refrigerator in a garage on the 3700 block of Beachglen Drive. The bear has returned to the neighborhood, which sits along the Verdugo Mountains just south of the Foothill (210) Freeway, several times. Fish and Game officials are patrolling the area every day, said spokesman Andrew Hughan.

“We’re not hunting it. We’re continuing to monitor it,” Hughan said. “We don’t want to harm the bear if we don’t have to.”

During another March sighting authorities blipped sirens and shined a light on the bear from a helicopter before it ran back to the forest.

Before the meatball incident, the last reported bear sighting was in November.

Officials have warned residents to keep their trash inside, spray trash cans with bleach to remove food odors and prune fruit trees. Hughan said residents have been doing a good job of following the tips.

Residents have expressed concerns about the bear in recent weeks, but after the Saturday sighting one resident said she pitied the bear.

“He’s just hungry,” said resident Joan Hearley. “I feel sorry for it.”

Resident Frank Cassin said he liked having the bear around.

“I think it’s cool because it’s a bear. Nobody has bears,” Cassin said, adding that he wasn’t afraid of it coming into his yard because it’s fenced off.