We have a short RWP today as there are more posts to come. First we hear from Robert Lang, who sees a surprising amount of wildlife near his home in the eastern LA “suburb” of Altadena. Robert’s intro is indented, and you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.
Although every day sees another few housing starts in post-fire Altadena, it’s still mostly empty of people, but after a year that included plenty of rain, the vacant lots are lush with plants—a mix of native coastal sage scrub, invasive weeds, and landscaping gone wild. This temporary rewilding provides plenty of cover for the local wildlife to come down out of the hills and hang out. Yesterday the workers at our site reported that a bear had stopped by and done a walk-through of the framed house (fortunately, just lookie-looing, no damage). Today I did a short hike on the Gabrielino Trail above my old stomping ground of JPL and saw a different (younger) California black bear (Ursus americanus californiensis) just off the trail, and I shot the photo below. . .
. . . also this video.
This isn’t the bear species on the California state flag, which is the California grizzly bear (Ursus arctos californicus); that was native to this area but was hunted to extinction in the early 20th century. In the 1930s, 28 “problem bears”, California black bears, were taken from Yosemite and released in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. The black bear species is highly variable in coloration, ranging from black through brown, blond, and even white (the so-called “spirit bears” of British Columbia). Most of the bears we see in Altadena are brown, like this youngster, all descended from the original Problematic Twenty-Eight.
JAC: Here’s the California state flag sporting a grizzly:
Wow, I’m impressed that you got so close to that bear. Great pic and video, thanks for sharing. I would’ve been nervous about momma being nearby, but I guess it was probably a yearling on his own. (I had a black bear on my deck in WV 2 weeks ago, destroying my bird feeders and waking me up. Assuming it to be raccoons I prepared to flip on the lights and open the door to scare them off – thankfully I saw the guy just outside my door before opening it. Wonderful but sobering.)
Yeah, I was a little worried about the momma possibility, but there was no sign of her. And I kept in mind that if things went south, I didn’t need to outrun the bear, just outrun the other hikers (it’s a busy trail on the weekends). And of course, I wasn’t terribly close; both photo and movie are zoomed in from a distance.