[pct-l] Black bear at Mason Valley, Anza-Borrego

["Anne Riedman" <anneri@4dcomm.com>]

This article was published in the 5/11 edition of the Borrego Sun, a
newspaper published in Borrego Springs every other Thursday.  Another bear
was seen in Ramona a couple of weeks ago, too.

Black Bear, car collide near Mason Valley

Vallecito Valley resident Judith Gray was driving home from Borrego Springs
at about 9 p.m. April 25 when she hit a black bear on Highway S2 near the
Box Canyon Monument in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (ABDSP).

Gray said she was on the Great Southern Overland Stage Route of 1849 when
she saw the bear rolling on the road.  She applied the brakes and swerved to
avoid the animal, but it rolled in front of her car.

“I was only going about 5 to 10 miles an hour when I hit him.  I didn’t do a
lot of damage to my car but it dented my hood and grill.  When I looked over
the hood of the car, I was looking into the bear,” she said.  “The first
thing I did was roll the windows up,” Gray reported, “I was trying to watch
him.  He rolled over and off the embankment.” The bear’s body was as long as
Gray’s Nissan Sentra is wide, she noted.

When Gray got home she called ABDSP and Clint Powell, a naturalist from
Ranchita who seeks reports of bear sightings.  Gray said Powell told her
there were two other sightings on that road the same evening.  The bear was
reddish-brown, which Powell told her is one of the colors of a black bear.

Paul Jorgensen, ABDSP resource ecologist, examined the site but there was no
sign of the bear, according to Mark Jorgensen, also a resource ecologist for
the park.
“You can’t get them mixed up with anything else, like a mountain lion and
bob cat,” Mark Jorgensen said.  “Most are evidence of the expansion of their
territory.”

Grizzly bears were in this area until the turn of the century, but there is
no evidence of black bears, Mark Jorgensen said. “Fish and Game brought
black bears into the southern Sierras in the ‘30s and ‘40s.  Obviously this
was the first sighting in our park,” he continued.

A biologist in Idyllwild had cautioned the Colorado Desert District of the
state parks to be looking for bears at Cuyamaca State Park because they are
migrating south.  A bear believed to be the one sighted earlier this year in
Julian was seen on the outskirts of Ramona and could still be there,
Jorgensen said.

A recent e-mail from the superintendent in Cuyamaca reported a
cinnamon-colored black bear was seen there after Gray’s encounter.

Jorgensen said it could be the same bear.  “They amble along pretty well.
They can run about 30 miles per hour.  When they want to go somewhere they
cruise along at about 5 to 10 miles an hour.”

Anne Riedman
anneri@4dcomm.com

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