Bears, humans share pools in LA's expanding suburbs — SkimNews
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- California is home to 50,000-70,000 black bears, with a few hundred living in the Angeles National Forest just north of Los Angeles and increasingly drawn to foothill neighborhoods as communities expand since the 1990s.
- Brian Gordon, a Monrovia resident in a city dubbed the state's "bear capital," shares his backyard pool with a family of bears and documents the encounters on an Instagram account called PoolBearLife.
- 2026 is on track to be a record-setting year for reported bear encounters in California, per Alex Heeran of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, with September marking peak hyperphagia (pre-hibernation feeding).
- Monrovia erupted in controversy earlier this year after a mother bear named Blondie was euthanized for swiping at residents; her two cubs are now being raised in captivity for potential release.
- Climate change and the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires have reduced natural food sources, pushing more bears into neighborhoods in search of calorie-dense human food, per UCLA researcher Wilson Sherman.
- Bears foraging near human environments reproduce more often and at higher rates than their wild counterparts because trash, pet food and pools provide easier calories than acorns and ants.
Why it matters: For foothill cities like Monrovia, the 2025 wildfires and suburban sprawl are accelerating bear encounters, with 2026 already tracking as a record year. The Blondie euthanization earlier this year — over minor injuries from a mother bear with two cubs — shows what happens when coexistence fails, making trash management and resident education urgent before hyperphagia season ends in October.
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