By Patric Hedlund

"Bears are an indicator species: they only live in the most beautiful places. You won’t find bears in Los Angeles or Bakersfield. They have taste." Those are the words of Steve Searles, a bear trainer from Mammoth Lakes, a town so superior (he says) that bears are all over the place.

Searles spoke at the Los Padres Bear Aware‘s "Night with Bears" Saturday, Sept. 15 about bears—and about humans too.

"Look," he says, "there are 16,000 homicides a year, people killing people. How many black bear homicides have you heard about this year? Last year? I guarantee that your survivors will get a movie deal if it happens to you, because there are no black bear homicides in North America. It’s humans you need to watch out for, not bears."

With his fast-paced and humor-laced deadpan delivery, Searles demonstrated an amazing variety of tools to help keep bears wild and towns bragging about their quality of life in wild neighborhoods.

Searles’ message is all about education: "You take care of educating the people," he told the Bear Aware coordinators. "I’m here to talk about educating the bears." His bottom line: Bears Are Smart. That is the lynchpin for his message. "Educate smart bears to stay out of houses and then keep those smart bears around so there will be no vacuum in the territory that some uneducated bear will just come along and fill."

In the wild, bears need up to 40 square miles of habitat to survive, depending on food sources and seasons. They are loners. Competition for territory among bears is becoming intense. "The pressure of bear population is growing at the same time that habitat is diminishing because of development," Searles says, estimating there are about state of 30 million people.

Searles uses towering attitude combined with wrist-rocket slingshots and WalMart air horns, golf balls and slurp guns "filled with male urine" to inform brown bears "in a language they can understand" that it is preferable to stay out of human habitat.

But once the local bears get the message, he prefers that they stick around the outskirts of his Mammoth Lakes community, because those bears will keep other bears out.

He works with law enforcement to show them the vast array of tools and techniques he has compiled to educate bears without killing them. Searles’ arsenal includes a wide array of shotgun ammo that whistles and zigzags slowly through the air "to scare bears so bad they are pooping while they are running," he said. "But I’ve talked in 22 states and three foreign countires and I haven’t found a Jeffrey Dahmer bear yet. More people eat people than brown bears eat people," he told the startled audience.

Keeping bears from being attracted to human homes and scavanging human garbage is the vital first step. Coordinating with law enforcement and regional wildlife authorities to set up a "bear education program" is the next step to solve the problem, Searles said.

Keep Them Wild to Keep Them Alive

Los Padres Bear Aware is working to make it easy to purchase Bear Resistant Trash Receptacles in the Mountain Communities. Bobbi Ladin of the Curious Bear Cafe in Pine Mountain sends this report.

By Bobbi Ladin

In August our first order of bear resistant trash receptacles was delivered, generating a lot of buzz. ‘Where can I get one?’ ‘How much?’ It appears that there are a lot of people who are very interested in these cans. Bear Resistant Receptacles are the surest way we can encourage bears to feed in the forest and not in our garbage, which can lead to their demise.

Homes and businesses must take responsibility for our garbage management on a residential and commercial level to help keep our bears alive and wild.

Bear Resistant Trash Receptacle Efforts So Far Include:

• Mark Bailey purchased a "Mini-Depot Triple Input Trash/ Recycle Bin" (industrial yet attractive, this receptacle is Fir Green for the area outside the Screaming Squirrel and Madd Bailey’s).
• The Curious Bear Cafe has organized our first residents’ order of 68 gallon cans. We need to order twenty at a time. The 68 gal. cans are $181.40 for mountain residents; 35 gallon cans are $168. Contact Joe and Bobbie Ladin at The Curious Bear Cafe (661) 242-2327 Thursday through Monday.
• The Pine Mountain General Store has purchased two 68 gallon cans for the area outside their store for public use, they also have two more on order. Thank you for all who donated to this effort and to Kim for organizing this community contribution.
• We need a local vendor/ merchant to become a dealer so that we can purchase these items easily and cheaply. Please contact us if you are interested in helping with this community effort: Los Padres Bear Aware (661) 242-PAWS (242-7297), P.O. Box 6536, Pine Mountain Club, CA 93222. Co-existing with our wildlife is a very rewarding way of life.

This is part of the September 28, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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