More to the bear story

Re: Bear death prompts formation of animal rights group (News, 11/5)

Thank you for your story on the bear, the Ojai Wildlife League (Ojaiwildlifeleague.com) and interview with Roland Takayama, the local head warden of the California Department of Fish and Game.

As someone who witnessed the bear’s death, I would like to point out several conspicuous omissions in Mr. Takayama’s version of the bear incident.

As your article noted, Mr. Takayama is the authority responsible for “dispatching the bear.” Reading his interview, one gets the impression that the merciful Fish and Game wardens gave the “lost and disoriented” bear ample opportunity to make a safe escape back to the mountains.

The article states, “The warden also said that the bear needed tranquilizing after it became evident it wasn’t coming down from its perch. According to department rules, that constitutes a safety hazard.”

Mr. Takayama is then quoted as saying, “If it comes down — and that’s what we were absolutely hoping it would do — we would escort (it) in the right direction.”

What Mr. Takayama fails to mention is that he gave the order to kill the bear at around 10 p.m. on a noisy Saturday night. There is also no mention of the fact that the police were trying to keep the bear up the tree during the daytime. Several members of the public questioned the zoo-like atmosphere on Saturday morning. The area was not cordoned off till around midday.

Bears climb trees when frightened. The chance of a shy black bear coming down with party music playing nearby, cars driving up to the cordoned area, turning around, their headlights shining toward the tree, sirens on Ojai Avenue,  plus dogs and people walking in the neighborhood, is practically nil. Even the police car I was standing next to had the engine running in order to fire up all the computerized communication gadgets.

I was standing next to the police when I saw the game wardens shining flashlights up into the tree, which I later heard caused the bear to climb higher. Shortly thereafter, I heard the sound of branches breaking and the bear crashing to the ground.

Mr. Takayama portrays himself as an authority on bear behavior. But is he?

Exaggerated perceptions of danger have historically led to bear eradication campaigns using poison, trapping and shooting. Mr. Takayama is a hunter.

Perhaps he perceives black bears as predators, threatening to man. 

According to wildlife biologists such as Lynn Rogers, Ph.D. (“Bearwalker of the Northwoods”), who has studied black bears for more than four decades, that perception could not be further from the truth.

Bears are afraid of humans, and usually will run away if they see or smell a person in the vicinity. A bear in a tree is a sign of submission and fear, not of aggression.

This Ojai bear was seen drinking out of a fountain and could very well have been thirsty. He came to town three days before it rained, at the end of a long drought.

Not a single person has ever, in all of recorded history, been killed by a black bear in all of California, Nevada or Oregon.  

Mr. Takayama also does not mention that other options were available the day that the bear was in the tree.

The public has a right to know why Mr. Takayama refused the help of Julia Di Sieno, the executive director of Animal Rescue Team, who was on the phone with officials on the scene several times that day. Di Sieno’s team offered their wildlife veterinarian, their bear biologist, and a secure 14-foot trailer that would have transported the bear to a private holding facility in the Santa Ynez Valley and impounded the bear for 14 days until the Telazol tranquilizer drug wore off.

Ann Bryant, executive director of the BEAR League of Lake Tahoe (www.savebears.org) states in her writings that “The bear who inadvertently ventured into Ojai recently should most certainly still be alive today and would be were it not for the inappropriate and woefully disturbing actions of a governmental agency — the Department of Fish and Game — that answers to no one and blatantly disregards its own mission to protect California’s wildlife.”

She states that “In Tahoe, a bear in a tree in a neighborhood is an everyday occurrence. Everyone here knows exactly what to do … clear the area, bring dogs inside, make sure the bear has a clear path of escape and let him come down when he feels safe. If a bear happens to go up a tree near a school or a busy road or any place where he may need assistance, the BEAR League is called (not the Department of Fish and Game) and we monitor the outcome so as to ensure public safety and to escort the bear back to an appropriate wooded area.”

In her articles, she describes how “In thousands of cases of bears in trees, we have never had to even think about using tranquilizers. We’ve never had a bear or a human being injured.”

There is a great need for accurate information about bears, both locally and worldwide. The newly formed Ojai Wildlife League is joining forces with other bear and wildlife organizations dedicated to educating the public and replacing misconceptions with facts.  

The time has come to update CDFG’s outdated kill policy to reflect the conditions we live in. Many animals have been displaced by urban growth, wildfires and drought. 

Authorities should start working with the Animal Rescue Team and other wildlife rescue organizations. 

Last month, Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara) sent a letter to the CDFG director, requesting a review of the department’s policies in regard to tranquilizing and euthanizing wildlife that is deemed to be a public threat. Please contact Assemblyman Pedro Nava, Senator Tony Strickland and other elected officials, and urge them to change current policies.

To read all of Ann Bryant’s articles, visit the Web site of the Bear League at www.savebears.org. The Bear League is a volunteer group that deals with getting black bears out of neighborhoods, trees, houses, crawl spaces under houses, even nursery school playgrounds without anyone getting hurt, including the bears.

Suza Francina
former Ojai mayor, City Council member www.OjaiWildlifeLeague.com
Ojai

Library director cries wolf, again?
The very first thing I discovered in January 2009 from reading the budget on the Ventura County library Web site, www.vencolibrary.org/libcomm.html, was that Wright wasn’t actually short at all. In fact, it was overfunded. Wright collects a little more than $1.2 million in property taxes, and around half of that money is given to Foster because Wright only needs around $650,000 to operate. It is wonderful that the property owners around Wright give half their money to help Foster, but it seems a little beyond wrong that suddenly all their tax money would be taken away and their library closed.

This information was a little hard to find because when I downloaded the Excel spreadsheet, it wasn’t apparent to the naked eye. The property tax revenue information was all contained in hidden cells. I tried to give as many people as possible the link, with the directions to click “unhide” so they, too, could see the straight facts. But most people don’t have time or go cross-eyed looking at spreadsheets. So they just had to trust that the director was telling them the library was short on funding. But the problem is that they were trusting someone who was giving them false information.

Here is the property tax revenue for the Ventura City Libraries taken directly from the library budget on the county Web site:

Foster $722,266
Wright $1,217,534
Avenue $123,817
Saticoy $111,637 (Saticoy is part of our library budget)

So the biggest question on my mind is why would library director Jackie Griffin threaten to close a library that not only operates extremely efficiently with its generous volunteers, but that is also overfunded?

There is more than one reason, but one key answer will give insight as to why the chain of events transpired as they did: the county auditor’s office apparently made a simple mistake and accidentally sent Griffin an incorrect budget that still included the money from Moorpark. Moorpark withdrew from the county library system and, therefore, that money was no longer part of the county budget. The money to operate Moorpark was $650,000. It would seem that a fiscally responsible manager might double check the records before she went on a spending spree, but that isn’t what happened in this case. Moorpark’s money was spent. (Again, having absolutely nothing to do with Wright or Ventura. This was Jackie’s county budget mistake.)

Jackie explained her mistake at a Ventura County library commission meeting. All was forgiven, and the mistake seemed honest. However, it appears that Bill Fulton decided to take this mistake and capitalize on it. Both Rick Cole and Bill Fulton had meetings with Jackie Griffin, and the plan was put in place to blame the shortfall on hard economic times. Everyone would believe that and rally to save the library. They made their case, and Bill published his newspaper article and blog, and Jackie came up with the same storyline and they stuck to their storyline over and over and over again, despite serious questioning from all of the attendees at the meeting. (Fulton, by the way, is on the library commission, purportedly to represent Ventura’s best interests in library service, and also happens to be the person who brought and hired Jackie after she had been fired as library director in Berkeley. Some of the public trusted and believed them, trying to brush aside their doubts. Then Fulton and Griffin went out on a real limb and tried to close Wright and instead open a children’s library at the mall. All the documentation for the children’s library at the mall is clearly documented and was even mentioned when Jackie first announced at the city council meeting that they would be closing Wright and opening another children’s library somewhere else in Ventura.)

Everyone is aware of the hocus-pocus that happened afterward and the blatant disregard of the Library Advisory Council’s recommendations and protocol for library service in Ventura. There are endless discrepancies beyond those listed above. Personally, Griffin, Cole and Fulton have lost all credibility for me. City leaders and library directors should be trying to find ways to serve the citizens who generously entrust their hard-earned tax money to them. Instead, we have games and abuse that have truly hurt the kind and trusting people of Ventura. Griffin needs to be audited, and the politicians need to stop using the library to cry wolf. Just remember what happened to the boy.

Maili Brocke, Ventura

Ill treatment of Bubbling Springs Creek
The comment by the Port Hueneme Public Works director that you included in your article would lead one to believe that Port Hueneme is a good custodian of Bubbling Springs Creek. The opposite is true. This is a flood control channel but also contains a year-round stream that is fed by a small spring. A true treasure in our area, but the city treats it as if it were an open sewer. The removal of “nonnative plants” referred to actually takes the form of massive herbicide spraying that kills all the grass, leaving the creek banks exposed to massive erosion during rainy periods. The “habitat for animals” is a very inhospitable one. The duck population survives on hand-outs of bread crumbs and cheerios.

Ted Waddell, Port Hueneme