Bear facts

A fellow on NextDoor this week named Bill said that his neighbors saw a bear recently in Champagne Crest, a community here in Fallbrook.

Allegedly, one neighbor saw tracks, the other had it on camera.

Many people on the social media site were quite skeptical but not me. I have seen a lot of strange stuff wander into Fallbrook, including two bighorn rams back in 1983 that I could have reached out and touched. Just last week we had a huge buck mule deer in the yard.

And last year my friend Jeff's son emphatically said that he saw a bear in Bonsall, on the old San Luis Rey Golf Course. And he grew up in Alaska and the family has been around bears their whole life.

I remember hearing a few years ago about a dead black bear found on the road near Lake Henshaw. Rangers confirmed it. I remember hearing a biologist say that when black bears finally discovered the avocado we would get eight hundred lb. black bears for the first time.

I decided to do a little digging on the subject of bears this week.

Anyone who has read Tom Hudson's Thousand years in the Temecula Valley knows that this was once prime grizzly area, which actually reached far down into Mexico.  During the Spanish land grant time, men would go up to Palomar, took five men to rope a bear and then bring them down to Temecula on Sundays and stage bull and bear fights.

It was said that an average bear would dispatch four or five bulls before succumbing to its own mortal injuries.

In 1866, the largest grizzly ever dispatched in California was killed in Valley Center, weighing in at 2200 lbs.  Back then they called the area Bear Valley.

The last grizzly bear ever killed in the area was actually taken in San Diego at a locale called Los Vallecitos, near San Mateo Creek. It was shot in 1899 by a rancher named Henry Stewart. The bear had taken to pilfering Fallbrook beehives.

San Mateo Creek runs into Tenaja, at our northern San Diego County boundary. 

Interestingly enough, biologists say that the black bear was never indigenous here, just the grizzly. But sometime around World War I a bunch of servicemen brought them to both Campo and Cuyamaca.

The website https://tchester.org/sd/lists/bears.html is out of date but does chronicle earlier San Diego bear sightings.

In 1933, 28 black bears were relocated from Yosemite to the San Bernardino Mountains, with another 11 relocated to the San Gabriel Mountains. The population in each area gradually expanded to somewhere between 150 and 500 in each region, the maximum carrying capacity. For many years, the bears stayed north of I-10, with only an occasional individual being sighted south of I-10.

In the past few years, there have been an increased number of sightings of black bears south of I-10, including ~10 in San Diego County 30-70 miles south of I-10. One possible explanation for the sightings in San Diego County is that somewhere around 1997, a population south of I-10 became established in the San Jacinto and perhaps the Santa Rosa Mountains. From this base, black bears are now frequently sighted in San Diego County. However, this explanation is by no means yet a clear fact. It will require at least several more years to establish whether there is an established population south of I-10, or if the observed bears were transients caused by some infrequent event in the population north of I-10.

Chester lists 10 local bear sightings between 1996 and 2000, when his article was published. Who knows how many have occurred since?

• In 1917-1919, a group of servicemen introduced bears to the Cuyamaca Mountains and Campo.
• A mother black bear with cub was reported at Camp Pendleton in 1973 (San Diego: An Introduction to the Region, Third Edition, p. 47)
• In 1976, bears were sighted in the Lake Henshaw/Palomar Mountain area and at Buckman Springs.
• A bear was seen at Cuyamaca State Park in the 1970s (David Holt's Black Bears in San Diego County)
• A single bear was sighted in the Agua Tibia Wilderness at Palomar Mountain in 1985, and also in 1987 on the north slope of Palomar Mountain.
• A female cinnamon colored black bear confirmed near Highway 76, Lake Henshaw, and the San Luis Rey picnic area in 1994.
• In Summer 1999, there were black bear sightings on Palomar Mountain (a sow and her two cubs were spotted numerous times at the La Jolla Reservation Campground off Highway 76 northwest of Lake Henshaw), Vulcan Mountain, and in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park (6/24/99). (SDUT 8/24/99, B1; 11/9/99, B5, B8)
• In September 1999, there was a confirmed sighting and photograph of a brown colored black bear at Fry Creek on Palomar Mountain.
• A 200 pound black bear was sighted on Cedar Summit Drive in Ramona about 1 p.m. on 11/7/99. (SDUT 11/9/99, B5, B8)
• A single bear took up residence in Heise Park in 1999 (Black Bears in San Diego County).
• In December 1999, there was a confirmed report of treed bear in Ramona.
• In January 2000, a brown-colored black bear was sighted in the Palomar Mountain area.
• In May 2000, two black bears were reported on Palomar Mountain.
• A 200 pound male black bear was killed in the Ballena Valley nine miles east of Ramona on 5/15/00 at ~ 6 p.m. after it entered David Benson's yard and approached their sheep and pigs. David and his wife Nancy tried to scare it away, but it turned toward them and stood up. David fired a warning shot into the air, to no effect, and then shot the bear in the head.
• There have been three reports of a bear breaking into coolers and a shed in the Julian and Ramona areas. (SDUT 5/17/00)

I vividly remember when a black bear was seen behind the store on the road up to Palomar about twenty years ago. Last year, two bears were observed on Palomar, one near the observatory and one near the general store.

Not too big a stretch for a bear to wander down the 76 and get to Bonsall, then move up Gird to Champagne Crest. 

I, for one, am a believer.