Residents of Burbank held a meeting with wildlife officials Thursday evening to address the growing concerns over the increasing proximity of bears to residential areas.
It comes after a bear found its way into a woman’s kitchen and showed no signs of fear toward humans.
Jennifer DuBois recounted the startling incident when a bear entered her house while she was on a Zoom call.
“I could hear some commotion to the right of me as I was sitting in my dining room, and I looked over to see a bear looking at me,” DuBois told KTLA. “We locked eyes for a second, and he casually left. It startled me, and I’m telling everybody, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a bear in my kitchen.'”
Neighbors in Burbank have brought up the idea of moving the bears elsewhere, but wildlife officials say they aren’t confident that the bears won’t simply return to the same area. DuBois is concerned that the bears might not survive being relocated.
“If the bears were removed and they could survive, I would be fine with that. But my understanding is that their survival might be in question so that would concern me as I don’t want anything to happen to the bears,” she said. “Obviously, this is their home too, but it is getting to the point where they’re not afraid of humans at all and obviously coming into kitchens and whatnot.”
A local wildlife expert has dismissed relocation as an option, citing the potential risks to the bears’ survival if introduced to another area with another animal of the same species.
While the bear did not pose a direct threat to DuBois, the incident left her feeling frightened.
Another resident, Janice Schaefer, shared videos of a bear in her backyard which caused significant damage to her jacuzzi tub.
With the warmer weather, wildlife experts say the bears are coming from the San Gabriel Mountains to the foothills of Burbank, attracted by fruit trees, summer barbecues, and easily accessible trash.
Animal control officials are emphasizing the importance of educating the public on how to discourage bears from approaching residential areas. Techniques such as yelling and using air horns can be effective in conditioning the bears to keep their distance.
But Stacie Wood-Levine, an animal control officer at the Burbank Animal Shelter, said that conditioning needs to be regular and involve the cooperation of all local residents.
“The bears need to continue to be conditioned. A lot of times, if they have a crowd of people that are just standing there with their phones, they do not think it’s a threat. So if they get an air horn here and there, they’re not going to be as scared. It’s important that everybody be on board and just use the air horns and haze them,” Wood-Levine said.
To address the concerns and provide information about bear sightings, an informational session was held at the Stough Canyon Nature Center on Thursday at 4 p.m. A biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife was present to discuss the situation.
In the meantime, residents should take the necessary steps to reduce the chance of bear encounters, especially taking the time to secure their trash. Bears are primarily searching for food sources, and unsecured trash often becomes an easy target for them, experts say.
