Showing posts with label Bears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bears. Show all posts

Sunday, April 28, 2019

Bears in Trees

Living toward the north east end of the City, we see bears in the neighborhood.  Occasionally, they will be in trees.  The first bear we saw here was in  a tree, having been chased up the tree by our dog.  Since then, we have seen more bears in neighborhood trees.   This weekend, we saw another bear in a tree.    Here, the bear is starting to climb up a vertical trunk of a pine tree.



Here is the bear further up the tree.   Hard to see him from here.    But, if you zoom in....





There's the bear.  Kind of looks like the bear is growing out of the tree.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Recent Wildlife in the Yard

Seems we have lots of alligator lizards and I've posted more than a few photos of them on this blog.   One thing about alligator lizards -- they're always going to give you attitude.

This  is a young bear we've seen several times already this  year.  They look sleepy and lumbering until you see them climb a tree.   They are very agile and can easily go straight up that pine tree in this picture.

The picture is poor, but this  is a bobcat we watched calmly walk across our  yard, jump up on the fence and  disappear into  the neighbor's yard.   This is maybe the third or fourth time we've seen a bobcat here.  This was a brief but fun sighting.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Bear Damage

Our first bear damage of the season -- broken fence stringer.  The lower rung of the fence was no match for the weight of the bear.   CA Fish and Wildlife says black bears typically weigh 100-200 pounds for adult females and 150-350 pounds for adult males, though California black bears have been weighed at more than 600 pounds.  These are big animals. 

How do I know it was a bear that  broke the fence?   Well, ,our trash can (with bear proof latch) was knocked over and there was a pile of bear poop steps from the fence.   

Thursday, January 5, 2017

First Bear Sighting of 2017

I came home last night to find a bear in my front yard.   As I got out of the car and walked toward the house, I heard a scratching sound and looked left to see a small black bear.   The bear was slowly climbing the trunk of a pine tree.  

Past posts on this blog roughly describe our experience with bears in this East Pasadena neighborhood.  When we moved in 14 years ago, we did not see any bears.   For many years, we kept chickens and an apiary without problem.    In 2009 we had our first real bear encounter when our dog chased a bear up a tree.    In 2011, I watched a bear take down our apiary, and in 2012,  a bear broke into our chicken coop and killed two of our chickens.   Bears have also caused an array of property damage.    And, back when we had chickens, I quickly turned a corner one day to come within ten feet of a very large up-right bear.    That was more than a little unnerving.   But, the loss of our chickens was the major turning point.  We may try again, but for now, bees and chickens are out.

At this point, we know bears are in the neighborhood and we may see bears several times a year.  The bear last night, though, was unusual.   From his size, we gathered that the bear was a yearling.  When you see a young bear, the first thing you look for is the mother bear, who should be close by.   However, we did not see the mother bear or any other bears.   The young bear seemed to be on its own.

I went into the house, leaving the bear sitting on a tree branch.  Later, I checked outside and the bear was gone.        

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Bear Attack Kills Two Chickens

 
Early Tuesday morning I took one step outside and saw this.  Sometime during the night, the side of our chicken house had been ripped off. 

Right away I knew it was bears.   A mother bear and two cubs have been in the area for weeks now.  Sunday night they were in a yard up our street and attracted the attention of the police, animal control and a helicopter.   On Monday morning, which is our trash pick up, they upended our trash cans and those of many up and down the street.    

As I put on my shoes, I was stunned, mad and sad all at the same time.  I knew we had lost chickens and I knew the bears had gotten them.   I walked to the hen house and saw a mass of feathers inside.   And the nesting boxes I made had been broken apart.   It was not hard to envision what had happened.    

I counted five chickens.   All were intact and looked fine.   Two of our flock were missing.   

I walked the yard and quickly found the remains of our two hens.    One hen, dubbed Speedy by our daughter, had been eaten no more than 20 feet from our back door.   The other hen, a pretty buff and white feathered chicken, had been taken to the front of the yard.   Very little was left of either bird.

I also saw plenty of other bear evidence -- two piles of bear poop, a broken fence and punctured volleyball.  


Though we live in the City of Pasadena, we're no strangers to wildlife.  I've devoted more space on this blog to wildlife than anything else for the simple reason that I'm amazed by it.   It is fascinating to see a hawk, coyote or bear in real life. 

Until now, I've thought we coexisted reasonably well with the wildlife.  But, the bears present an unusual challenge.  They're just so big and strong.   Coyotes can be fenced out. But, bears -- they go where they want and do what they want, including breaking through fences and ripping the siding off a chicken coop.        

I have to admit they're wearing on me.   I can deal with the trash barrels.    I don't like it, but I can fix a fence or two.   But, I hate losing our chickens. 

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As I post this, I'm not sure what we're going to do.  We hear from others that bears are still in the neighborhood.   As things stand, we have no way to stop them from breaking into the coop again.   And, if we left our remaining chickens in the coop, the bears would certainly return for more.   So, while we figure things out, we've temporarily  relocated our chickens to another home.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

A Morning Bear

We were having breakfast this morning, sitting at the table right next to the screen door.   I had my back to the door and was enjoying some morning eggs and coffee, when our daughter says, "there's a bear."    My first thought was that she was kidding.  Her voice was a little too calm.  So, I took another bite of eggs.

My second thought was that it was strange for her to kid about a bear.  Why kid about that?  So, I turned around and looked outside.  There, on the other side of the screen door, not more than ten feet from us, was a young bear.

He roamed over to our chickens, which sent the birds scurrying inside their pen.   The bear sniffed around the chicken wire, pushed on it a bit, thankfully not hard enough to push it over.  Then he moved on.

The bear climbed our apricot tree.  It is not a very good shot, but I got a picture of him in the middle of the tree looking back at me.   There's not much fruit left on the tree. Most all of our apricots are eaten by kids doing exactly what the bear was doing -- climbing around the tree looking for ripe apricots.

After about ten minutes we watched the bear move on.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Bears and the Bees

Every summer bears venture down from the mountains into our north-east Pasadena neighborhood.   They are looking for food and every year there are reports of trash cans overturned or fruit trees raided.   From what I've heard, few people in the neighborhood ever actually see a bear and even fewer seem concerned about the animals.  Until this summer, I had experienced only one real bear encounter.  Early one morning a couple of years ago, our dog surprised a bear who scrambled up a tree and then watched me while I took his picture.  It was a fascinating morning. 

Well, this summer I had another bear encounter.   Actually, our bees suffered the encounter and I just watched.   Last year we kept bees without any incident.  No such luck this year.   Above is a photo of our little five-box high bee hive.  The hive had been healthy and happy all summer buzzing along and making honey.   At about 2 am recently I heard our dog barking and watched out the window as a bear stood on its hind legs, put its paws against the top of the hive and knocked it over.   The frames spilled out and the bear gorged itself on honey.  It was a sad, sad sight.

Amazingly, though, the hive survived, was put back together and moved to a new home.        

      

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Bear Signs

Seems we get some bear activity about this time every year. Earlier this week I saw a neighbor picking up his trash barrel, which a bear had knocked over. Last night it was our turn and early this morning the dog woke us up to the sounds of a bear rumaging in our trash. As I expected, this morning our trash barrels were knocked down.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Bear Signs -- Bear Poop

My favorite photographer got this shot of bear poop in front of our house.

It is all pretty interesting. To think that this giant animal stopped (I assume they stop) in front of our house to deposit his or her load. The whole pile is big -- about football sized. You can tell what the bear has been eating. Judging from the green and orange chunks above, it looks like this bear had eaten some apples, carrots or peppers. Years ago we found a bear pile in our backyard (across the fence from our neighbor's trash can) that had parts of an ice cream carton in it.

There is a lot on the Internet about how to recognize bear scat and stories of people finding bear scat with parts of pizza boxes and even bike chains. And, of course, there's the Man vs. Wild episode where Bear Grylls washes the undigested parts of bear poop and eats it. Lots of surprising stuff about bear poop.

Now that it is November, I'm seeing fewer signs of bears. No signs last week at all. No trash cans down. No dog barking. We are doing what we can to discourage the bear from coming our way and maybe it is working.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Bear Sightings -- Bear Swimming in Upper Hastings Ranch



The Star News reports today that a bear raided some trash cans and then strolled through an Upper Hastings Ranch neighborhood apparently chased by Animal Control officers. No pictures, but the story says the bear stopped periodically to swim in some backyard pools.

Here's the part of the story I didn't like: "Had the bear damaged property, the law would have required that it be destroyed, California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Harry Morse said."

It is hard to know what has gone on before with bears in this neighborhood, but the state response seems a little heavy handed and premature. For the most part, I think folks who live near the mountain's edge welcome sightings of wildlife and take responsibility for themselves and their property. That seems right to me. There are many things you can do to deter wildlife from getting into your trash for instance.

But, is it really that stark for the state authorities. You call them and if there's any property damage -- bang the bear's gone? Isn't there something else they can do? I would think a little more measured response is in order from the state authorities. There must be some reasonable alternatives that have not been explored.

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This summer we've seen an increase in wildlife activity in NE Pas neighborhoods. I think the increase started even before the fires. The Station Fire burned a lot of wildlife habitat and presumably either killed many wild animals or forced them into unburned areas of the mountains. Since the unburned areas are closest to neighborhoods, it will be interesting to see whether we see even more bears and other wildlife in our NE Pas neighborhoods.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Bear Signs - bear on the patio



This seems to be our year for bears. At 2 am a couple of nights ago we got up to see what the dog was barking about. We stood on one side of sliding glass doors leading to a patio and watched as a bear ambled by just on the other side of the doors. Unlike the bear that climbed our tree last July, this was a very very large bear -- several hundred pounds I'd say. And unlike the "teenage bear" we saw in July, this animal was not the least concerned about our madly barking dog. It was amazing to be less than five feet away from such a large wild animal.

The fires may have chased the bear down the mountain. But, I think he was around even before the fires. Someone has been throwing around our trash cans. One morning I went out to find our large city-issued green waste barrel completely flipped over and standing on its lid. I have a hard time standing that barrel up when it falls. It took something really big, like that bear, to turn the barrel completely over.

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Stronger than expected smell of smoke this morning. So much that I've closed the windows and started the air (which I hate to do). The Mt. Wilson cam still shows burning and smoke to the east. Hopefully nothing has erupted closer than that.

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Incredible photos of some of the fire's devastation over at Altadena Hiker.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Bear Signs


About a month ago I posted photos of the bear that had climbed up a pine tree in our back yard. In more than five years in our Northeast Pasadena home, that was the first time we had actually seen a bear.

More often we just see signs of bears. There was the time we found a pile of trash in our back yard (including a large container of cookie dough) right next to a pile of a different and very smelly sort. Then there was the time a bear pushed down our chain link fence -- just crushed it - on a night my son and I chose to sleep outside. And then there was the morning the guy painting our neighbor's house came running into our yard looking like he'd seen a ghost. The guy was literally shaking when he told me he had seen a "giant" bear. After some time, I walked him back to his job and he spent the rest of the day painting the inside of the house behind locked doors.

But mostly bear signs involve trash cans. This morning I walked out side to see our trash can tipped over. It was the second time this week this has happened. The recycling and green waste containers were undisturbed, it is always the trash can that is tipped.

Here's another picture of the bear we encountered a month ago. I wonder if this is the one getting into my trash can?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Bear Trees a Bear

Yesterday morning, this black bear was up in our pine tree. Actually, the bear is about forty feet up, looking down at me as I stood at the base of the tree taking his picture.

So what is a black bear doing in our tree?

The story starts with our dog, who happens to be named Bear. When we picked him up from the Pasadena Human Society he was described as part Akita. We read that Akitas were bred for bear hunting. Hence the name Bear. He's still a puppy, but is going to be a pretty big guy.
Yesterday at about 5:30 am, Bear started barking and heading for the back door. He and I walked outside to check things out. We saw the bear standing about 15 feet from us next to a pine tree. The bear reacted in a flash by scrambling up the tree. I could hear the scratching noise of his claws digging into the trunk as he climbed. He went straight up to some limbs about forty feet off the ground.
This picture gives you an idea of how high the bear climbed. If you look carefully you can see the bear resting on the second set of limbs up from the ground.

Though he kept track of us (of course I woke everyone up to come out and see the bear in the tree), the bear did not seem concerned. He nonchalantly hung out.
He stood on one limb.

Then he stood on another limb.

Then he went back to the other limb and sniffed around in the pine.

Then he put his head down and went to sleep.
What a way to start the day!

The Bear Facts

According to the Los Angeles Almanac, 150-500 black bears currently roam the Angeles National Forest. Interestingly, black bears are not native to our local mountains. The bear native to our area was the grizzly. However, the fierce grizzlies were eradicated by at least 1916. Some time later, authorities wanted to reintroduce bears to our local mountains. Instead of grizzlies, they chose the kinder gentler black bear. In 1933, Yosemite rangers brought in 11 black bears who are the forebears of our current bear population.
Black bears are omnivores, but eat mostly vegetation. Reportedly their adult weight can range from 90 to 600 pounds. They can run up to 30 mph, are good swimmers and great climbers. With their upright ears, black bears are the inspiration for teddy bears and for Winnie the Pooh.
In foothill areas bears are sometimes reported coming down into the neighborhoods in search of food. This seems true particularly on trash day. We've seen signs of bears around our house before -- a broken fence, trash cans knocked down and a some really foul bear remains. But, I never expected to have this kind of encounter!