Bear-y good neighbors: humans and animals are learning to live together in an expanding LA

Every year, as summer draws to a close and fall begins, California’s bears get hungry. Black bears have long roamed the state, hunting for acorns, ants and pine nuts by the bucketload to pack on calories before hibernation. But increasingly, for every berry and root, there’s an even greater temptation: our trash and the detritus of human existence.

That dynamic is playing out in perhaps a surprising place: Los Angeles. As communities on the outskirts of the metropolis grow, bears are butting up against humanity, drawn to residents’ pools, their chicken coops, their fruit trees and trashcans. A few hundred of those live in the Angeles national forest, just north of the city and its millions of hungry households.

Brian Gordon and his partner moved to the state’s bear capital – Monrovia, California – four years ago. Their house is the last before the Angeles national forest begins, and as they were buying the home, a family of bears wandered through the back garden. It was the start of a new era of coexistence.

Now, the pair regularly share their pool with a family of bears and document their exploits on an Instagram account called PoolBearLife. Videos show bear cubs with their snouts bubbling in the water, climbing – and falling from – trees and causing adorable, young bear mayhem. I actually thought people get eaten by bears a lot,” Gordon said.

That’s really all they’re doing. I realized, OK, I have an unnatural fear of these animals and we’ve kind of adapted to living around them. We bought a house that happened to have bears.” Gordon and his partner live amongst the bears, but they’re also vocal advocates for doing so safely.

Trashcans are kept clean, temptations are removed and, despite the filming, they give the bears their space. Sometimes mistakes are made and a bear finds a case of beer in the garage. But with consideration, bears don’t even stop to sniff the trash cans and will just pass through the backyard like it’s an extension of the forest nearby, the couple said.