With ‘Meatball’ the Glendale bear gone, La Cañada has its own ursine visitors

The bear affectionately known as “Meatball” may have been carted away, but in this story, when one goes, another takes its place.

Or that appears to be the case in La Cañada Flintridge, where a residential security system caught video footage of a large black bear prowling a home before raiding the trash cans for a late night snack.

Christina Corvalan said she and her husband heard a commotion outside at around 10:30 p.m., then saw the bear on their multi-camera home security system.

“We’ve never seen a bear in the area before … and this is a really big bear,” she said.

In the footage, the bear can be seen coming onto the Hampstead Road property from a wooded area below.

The home is about 1 1/2 miles from Pomander Place, where another black bear with a taste for trash was spotted twice in July.

Janice Mackey, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game, said residents can prevent city-issued garbage bins from becoming ursine lunch boxes by cleaning the bins with bleach or ammonia.

“It’s always a smell factor,” she said, adding that residents can also take more drastic action.

“They do have bear-proof trash cans and containers,” she said. “And up in Tahoe they use hot wire.”

Lt. Elizabeth Sachs of the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station said deputies weren’t dispatched to the Corvalan’s home because they weren’t alerted until the bear had moved on.

Corvalan said that she and her husband didn’t want to risk going outside on Saturday night, but wanted other families in the area to be on the lookout.

“It was pretty much a mess. We were afraid,” she said. “[Our neighbors] have children that go in the pool two doors over, so I just want the neighbors to know.”

-- Daniel Siegal, Times Community News

Follow Daniel Siegal on Twitter: @ValleySunDan