By Patric Hedlund

The Pine Mountain homes of Justen Zimmerman and Thomas "Tim" Marvel both were surprised by very hungry visitors this week who have reversed the story of Goldilocks

Over the Fourth of July weekend, it was the bears who were doing the breaking, entering and porridge sampling. These uninvited guests head straight for the refrigerators and freezers, dining on legs of lamb, frozen berries and chocolate chips. Their greedy manners have resulted in a death sentence.

On Sunday, July 8, a California Department of Fish and Game trapper installed a "culvert trap" in Marvel’s driveway on Maplewood in Pine Mountain. Fish and Game does not have a "relocation program." If a bear enters the trap it will be anesthesized and then shot to death.

Los Padres Bear Aware, which has been emphasizing since last summer that "a fed bear is a dead bear," called an emergency meeting at the Screaming Squirrel Café in Pine Mountain Village Tuesday, July 10. About 20 members appeared, several of whom had recently had bears on their own property.

Karen Dominquez on Chestnut had two bear visits. Tracy Truman near Zermatt bought a bear-proof trash can after finding a bear at her house.

Others, such as Kim Wickers and Denise Long, have begun fundraising and website development to provide information to members of the community about how to discourage bears from becoming "habituated" to human food sources.

Liz Bolden, LPBA founder, has been working tirelessly with Joe and Bobbie Laden (owners of The Curious Bear Café) and other members to alert restaurant owners, full time mountain residents, weekenders and guests that the only way to help keep bears alive and wild is to make all human sources of food unavailable to them.

Reluctant hunters from the state have no choice but to trap and kill bears who have learned to break in to homes and shops. "They learn so quickly," Bolden said, "they look through car windows for ice chests and into kitchens to spot refrigerators. Once they’ve found such a meal, their days may be numbered unless we can employ ‘depredation’ techniques to scare them so badly they will never want to come around homes again."

On Tuesday though, the group’s concern was how to keep a bear from being killed in the state’s trap. The group wanted to beg the Marvels to ask that the trap be removed. Many members were concerned however about the need to work with the couple.

A small group of representatives asked for permission to speak with the longtime Pine Mountain residents. They arrived at dusk, with just enough light to see the baited iron trap waiting in the drive. They discovered that the Marvels had already taken numerous precautions to keep bears from being attracted to their home. They had motion sensor flood lights to startle the bears outside. They never leave trash or dog food outside, they said, and their locker-style freezer was under a tarp, buried behind two cars in the carport. But on June 30 a bear found a frozen feast there. They took the freezer upstairs into their bedroom walk-in closet, but by then it was too late.

About a week later, a fairly young bear habituated to human food sources jumped across a four foot gap from a porch to a carport roof to try to enter the Marvel’s home through their bedroom window at 1:00 a.m. Bobbi screamed, terrorized.

The Marvels have agreed to work with LPBA to educate the community about preventing other such instances. They feel certain that food sources in homes nearby-and people who purposely feed wild animals- have attracted, and trained, a new generation of cubs. They want to be part of the solution, they said, before another bear has to lose its life.

This is part of the July 13, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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