California black bear human conflict

Black Bears Break into Multiple California Homes as Conflicts Rise

Sierra Madre, California officials are suggesting black bear hazing and hunting, but have yet to introduce wide-scale bear-proof trash cans. This is a problem.

As Great Smoky Mountains National Park black bear research has taught us: Bear management is really human management. Hazing bears deals with the symptom, not the cause. And hunting urban bears in urban areas is not only dangerous, but does nothing to prevent the habituation of the next generation of bears.

Amid a recent uptick in human-bear conflicts in Sierra Madre (a small LA County area bordering hundreds of acres of protected wildlands), city officials may begin “rolling out” bear-proof trash cans, local KCAL reports. But it’ll be too little too late for the bears themselves, as the city has allowed them to become habituated to easy food sources for years.

As KTLA 5 also reports, complaints are pouring in this spring as the bears re-emerge from their winter torpor (a bear’s version of hibernation). Hungry bruins are breaking into homes and cars and causing destruction to both. Porches and driveways are being raided. And there is trash everywhere.

But that trash is not a bear problem. It’s a human problem. And for anything to change, the city itself will have to. Drastically.

The number of bears sightings, break-ins and close encounters is growing in a Sierra Madre community, leaving residents on edge. Locals and city officials said bear attacks are becoming too common and they’re concerned it’s only a matter of time before an encounter turns deadly. City leaders said they’re trying to create a plan that will make residents feel safer while also protecting the wild bears. KTLA’s Carlos Saucedo reports on April 11, 2023.

KTLA 5

The Problem with Reactive Bear Management

For decades, bear management was reactive (which managed bears after a problem). In the past, this meant bear management success was measured by things like “How many bear-caused injuries did we have this year?”

This has changed dramatically in the Smokies, and the results speak for themselves. But Sierra Madre officials seem to be stuck in a hard reactive mindset. As do some residents.

“There’s no boundaries,” says resident Catherine Adde to KCAL “They don’t recognize boundaries.”

Not to be crass, but of course they don’t. Food is food, and an easy meal is an easy meal, period. Doesn’t matter where it comes from. The only way to stop a black bear from sourcing your trash or bird feeder, pet food or porch scraps is to not give them access to it. We may not think of these things as food, but they are, and leaving them strewn about is a mistake we make, not the bear. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Hazing also treats the symptom, which is a “nuisance” bear. And it only works short-term. Like wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and other intelligent, adaptive predators, the black bear will eventually learn to disregard and/or avoid whatever is being used to haze them, whether that be loud noises, strobe lights, or even non-lethal projectiles. Treating the symptoms simply doesn’t work.

Black Bears Require Proactive Management

Bears of the area will only become truly wild again after that mindset changes to proactive management. A proactive system manages bears and people prior to problems. It treats the cause (human ignorance) rather than the symptom (nuisance bears).

This means installing those bear-proof trash cans, eliminating bird feeders in bear-prone areas, never storing pet food outside, and more. It’s either that, or habituating bears. And a fed bear is a dead bear – one that will continue to pose a threat to people until it is killed.

As Sierra Madre’s current situation illustrates, this snowballs. California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Management analyst James Carlson explains this with numbers:

  • Sierra Madre received 130 calls about bears in 2022
  • This is an increase of around 20% from 2021
  • The number of black bears spotted in the area has grown exponentially from decade to decade after the 90s

“The concern has risen quite dramatically in recent years,” Carlson adds for KCAL. “The bears also appear to be getting a little bolder for the first time.”

In short, this is not a new problem for the area. But now that reactive management has snowballed into a true mess, it’s finally being dealt with. City officials are now urging the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife to create policies that push for a more sustainable black bear population in the San Gabriel Valley. Outspoken critics of the species in Sierra Madre continue a reactive mindset, however.

Black Bears

The city’s former mayor, Glenn Lambdin, tells local news that Sierra Madre has had more bear encounters and attacks than any other area of California. Considering Sierra Madre proper is only three square miles, this is an astounding statistic.

Lambdin is also the survivior of a “terrifying encounter” with two black bears that entered his home. He’s also watched as bears wander through school grounds and campuses.

“Make a policy that would eliminate the entire urbanized bear population in our foothill communities,” Lambdin offers on the latest string of bear incidents. “It’s only a matter of time until one of these children gets mauled, probably at lunchtime when they want food.”

With this reactive mindset, however, California’s only remaining bear species would eventually go the way of their state animal – the California grizzly bear – which has been extinct for the past century.

The alternative is all residents in bear country – wherever that falls in America – becoming BearWise. For ways to be proactive with black bears, see our BearWise breakdown next.