[pct-l] Southern bears ya'll

[mardav@xxxxxxxxxxx (Marion Davison)]

This info is from a ranger who spoke at our Victorville Sierra Club
meeting.  There were no bears in the San Jacintos, it being an isolated
habitat.  However, a few bears in recent years have used the PCT as a
migration corridor to move from the San Bernardinos to the San Jacintos.
However they are still so few as to not be a problem there.    The San
Bernardinos have a few problem bears, chiefly around mountain towns, the
youth camps,  and heavily used car camps.  They dumpster dive and raid
garbage cans and the occasional unoccupied cabin.  We know a couple of Boy
Scouts who were mauled by a bear at Camp Tahquitz as they slept on the
ground in their none-too-clean campsite.  The bear was tracked down and
shot.  The San Gabriels are so dry as to lack feed to support much of a
bear population and they are seldom seen.
We have been camping and hiking extensively in all three ranges.  We have
seen just one bear, who was dumpster diving in the Vivian Creek picnic
ground  at dusk one early summer evening.  From my experience the So. Cal
Mtn bears are not habituated to getting food from backpackers and haven't
learned how to break in to secure cars.  I wouldn't lay any bets on a soft
top convertible with a cooler in the back seat, however.  All the bears in
the So. Cal mtns. are descendants of problem bears that were removed from
the National Parks in the early 20th century.
llamalady

Randy Forsland wrote:

> I was wondering..when do you need to start worrying about bears in the
> southern part of the state ??
>
> Where does the southern boundary of their range end??
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