We can't bear it - more sightings occur

ON THE PROWL-Oak Park resident Vince Curtis captured this home video of the bear paying a visit to the homes on Smoketree Avenue. A sheriff's deputy keeps his distance. Another California black bear sauntered down from the mountains last Saturday, wending its way through Agoura Hills and jumping the backyard fences in Oak Park.

There was a second sighting Sunday near Lindero Canyon Road and Bowfield Street in the North Ranch area of Thousand Oaks, but authorities aren't sure if it was the same bear. Then on Tuesday another sighting occurred near Westlake High School.

Saturday, a juvenile bear made a pit stop in the backyard of our Oak Park home at dusk, much to the surprise of my husband, Chris (McGinley), and our 18-year-old son, Evan, who were preparing to throw some steaks and chicken on the grill when the incident occurred.

After making a trip to UC Berkeley to bring Evan home, I was tired and decided to wait upstairs for dinner when my daughter, Maria, called out urgently and asked me to come to the window. We saw scads of people on our usually empty street, several sheriff's patrol cars and two deputies with rifles running up our driveway.

By the time I got downstairs the deputies were pounding on our door. The first unfortunate thought that ran through my mind was that perhaps our usually straight-as-an-arrow son had somehow gone astray in hippietown Berkeley and that the law was after him.

Luckily Evan was innocent, but there was a bear in our backyard and it was in a heap of trouble.

Two officers, meanwhile, had entered our home with weapons drawn.

Then it hit me. Chris and Evan were in the backyard holding raw meat for the barbecue. Why would a large bear leave the relative safety of the hills for suburbia if not for hunger?

The officers ran to the backyard through open sliders and noticed that the side door was also open. They asked if we'd had the doors open for long, but didn't wait for a response. They peaked in the bathroom, but the bear wasn't there.

All of the commotion made our 8-year-old son, Timmy, fall apart. A nature lover, Timmy knows that California black bears are anything but cuddly teddies. He had heard about the black bear that was captured earlier this month in Newbury Park.

Not knowing if the bear had eaten my husband and son-or just the steak-we were relieved to see that it had hopped the fences and was turning the corner at Pinewood and Conifer.

Not quite believing what he was seeing, Chris turned to Evan and asked "Is that a bear in our backyard?" They retreated to the safety of the garage as the bear jumped the fence.

"It was surprising that a bear could appear in your backyard so quickly and quietly and jump over the tall fence so effortlessly," Chris said.

Our neighbors had their own stories to tell.

Eric Weills and his two children, Katherine, 12, and Adrian, 3, had just come indoors after relaxing in their Jacuzzi.

"It was shocking to see a bear in my backyard," said Weills, who added that the bear had knocked down part of his backyard wall.

Our next door neighbor Alan Howie was standing by his pool when he saw something running toward his open gate.

"I thought I saw a big dog running toward the gate," Howie said. "I looked carefully and saw it wasn't running like a dog-it was much bigger than a dog."

A sheriff's deputy told Howie to get into his house as fast as possible. Howie's 2-year-old son had just gone into the house when the bear entered the backyard."He didn't look like he was aggressive, but he wasn't backing off," Howie said.

The bear had come to Howie's yard twice and even took a dip in his pool before standing upright to scale the wall into our yard.

Howie wondered why the authorities didn't warn people about the bear with a loud speaker system. A deputy from the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station said if the bear was docile, using a loud speaker could agitate it and make it more dangerous.

Deputies had been tracking the bear in Agoura Hills and Oak Park for hours. Capt. Ken Lozzens of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said the bear probably had returned to the hills.

In the 20 years we've lived in our Oak Park home we've had opossum families, ducks, skunks, raccoons, cranes, crows, coyotes and other critters stop by for a visit, but we never expected a bear.

"Now we're waiting for a kangaroo," Chris said.

Although it's rare for bears to attack humans, a black bear last month attacked and seriously injured a hunter outside a national park in Washington state, reports said. The bear that was recently captured in Newbury Park was sedated and transferred to Los Padres National Forest near Ventura.

Warden Cindy Wood from the California Department of Fish and Game warns residents to take proper precautions against black bears. "They're coming out of hibernation," Wood said. "We need to give them negative reinforcement." Fish and Game officials recommend the following: +Deodorize garbage cans with bleach or ammonia +Double-bag garbage bags to reduce odors

+Keep barbecue grills as clean as possible.

+Pick up fallen fruit and put away outdoor pet food and birdseed at night +Do not leave food near an open window +Request a bear-proof garbage bin for your neighborhood or apartment complex +Block access to potential hibernation sites such as crawl

spaces under decks and buildings

For more information about wildlife sightings and other information, call the Department of Fish and Game South Coast regional office at (858) 467-4201, or visit www.dfg.ca.gov.

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