Sonoma Valley’s bear population on the move

Just over a month ago, cooped-in parents and children would take walks in their neighborhoods on “bear hunts,” looking for stuffed teddies in home windows.

Now that bear hunt takes on a more perilous meaning. A series of bear sightings over the past two weeks in Sonoma Valley has residents wary, as bear behavior isn’t always cute.

On Saturday, May 16, a bear got into the trash on the porch of an occupied house on Norrbom Road, just north of Sonoma city limits. The occupants made cell phone video of the visit and posted in on YouTube.

On Friday, May 22, a bear was reported to have tried to climb in the window of an RV parked on Cavedale Road. The RV was occupied.

By 6 a.m. the next morning, what was possibly the same bear was seen scavenging in the parking lot of Jack London State Historic Park, six miles away.

“It looks like a juvenile,” said Meghan Walla-Murphy of the North Bay Bear Collaborative, who has only seen photographs of this particular individual. “They look big, but they’re not thick and robust like a full-grown bear - they look skinny and awkward like a teenage boy.”

She points out that this is the time of year that juveniles of about 2 years – older than cubs, not yet mature – begin to explore beyond their home habitat to find a place of their own, so to speak, since Mama Bear (or, less romantically, the sow) has stopped giving them any attention. Bear litters usually average about two cubs.

The North Bay Bear Collaborative (NBBC) was loosely organized in 2016, but really began to coalesce following the fires the next year. “Sugarloaf had picked up pictures of a mom and cubs, so we started realizing there was a reproducing population of bears in Sonoma County,” said Walla-Murphy.

She has a thing for bears. “I am crazy about bears, I love them - that’s my work, wildlife ecology and tracking.” Working for a time as a contractor for Sonoma County Regional Parks, Walla-Murphy began to wrangle the local nonprofits, agencies and businesses into what are now the dozen-plus partnership organizations in the collaborative, at beingwithbears.org.

Statewide, bears are increasing in number. California Fish and Wildlife, along with the Sonoma Ecology Center and the NBBC, are embarking on a pilot study to estimate the number of bears in Sonoma and Napa Counties. “We will be doing this by collecting bear scat,” said Stacy Martinelli, a wildlife biologist with the agency.

“We are able to identify each individual based on the genetic material in the scat. We will also hopefully be able to shed light on familial relationships between bears and find out who is related to who.” The program is to begin this summer.

That the California black bear, once widely native to North America, is re-establishing some of its historic range is nice to know, for a naturalist. But for vineyard managers or rural homeowners, roaming juveniles present a problem – and not just for the humans.

“If a bear gets used to looking for food around people’s homes, it can be frightening for people and a death sentence for the bear,” said Caitlin Cornwall of the Sonoma Ecology Center.

John Roney, manager of Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, points out that if a bear becomes a nuisance, “homeowners can request the bear to be removed. That may mean capture or being shot.” Depredation permits can be issued which gives a property owner the legal right to shoot an animal – usually mountain lion, bobcat, fox or bear – if it is perceived as a nuisance.

It may be a rare situation, however. “We may issue one or two permits per year and often the bear is not even taken,” said Martinelli. “To my recollection no bear depredation permits have been issued over the last two years.

No one thinks that the bears are being aggressive, just “opportunistic” feeders. “They’re looking for where to set up their territory, driven by their noses – what they can smell,” said Walla-Murphy. She said that explains why they’re often seen poking around trash bins: “The smell of hot garbage can carry for a long distance.”

At Sugarloaf, Roney has been working with the Bear Collaborative and Recology on various aspects of trash and recycling, possibly to include installing bear-proof trashcans.

“It’s a new topic for me at Recology Sonoma Marin,” said Fred Stemmler, the resource recovery organization’s general manager, but formerly in a similar role in Oregon. “You have a very small bear population here, there are many mitigation measures people might take, starting with containers” – locking trash cans that can’t be opened, even by a raccoon.

“What’s more common are raccoons.” He said many in his business jokingly called them “small bears,” because most complaints about bears in the trash turned out to be the masked bandit instead. In other words, don’t confuse Rocky with Smoky.

In the meantime, the Cavedale-Grove Street bear seems to have headed up into the wilds of Sonoma Mountain, passing through Diamond A on its journey to a new range - where, in another couple years, another litter may be born.

Email Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.