Part Two in a series on the Ojai Community’s response to a killing of a black bear in Ojai.
By Carol L. Healy.
Published with permission of the author.
Lightly edited for clarity by Suza Francina.
A totally different take on the days events then what I’ve read so far on the Ojai Post about the Bear
“Early Saturday morning I got a call from a young friend on her way to work telling me there was a beautiful big black bear in a tree a block from where I lived. I got dressed and walked to Aliso Street to behold the magnificence of what is the Bear.

Grateful I could see his eyes, shape, face so clearly but surprised that despite the police presence I could actually get as close as I did, I began to feel an awful pit in my stomach that told me that this bear was in for it.
As I began to leave I noticed people everywhere on the street, people going into the parking lot closer to Signal street, people still being allowed to drive by, back and forth, and I realized from the Bear’s perspective and vantage point way up in that tree, he knew he was surrounded by a huge threat: people!
So, the bear did what all bears are taught to do by their mother’s when threatened, it hunkered down in the tree: it’s only choice, to wait us out.
Watching the huge police presence there early in the morning, not telling people what to do, not asking people to please leave the area for the bears sake, was truly disturbing and disheartening. I suddenly wanted them to do their job, a job that apparently, even though they patrol a rural area, they have not been trained to do where bears are concerned. The bear would clearly only become more stressed, thirsty, hungry, tired, and scared the longer these people were there, the longer whatever was going to happen would take to happen.
I checked back several times in the morning to witness people gawking, taking pictures, cars still driving by slowly and stopping to look and it seemed like everyone had just lost there common sense. The bear had no chance in hell of coming down from that tree as long as all those people were allowed to be there. But then, it looked more and more to me like that was indeed the strategy behind not telling people to leave. Keep the bear up in the tree as long as possible and if by chance it did come down, it would then be a threat to all the people there and would justifiably need to be killed for our own good.
The police finally roped the area off after our Chumash Elder Julie Tumamait posed the question about mid-day as to why on earth weren’t they telling people to go back inside or go home? At that point it seemed most of the people in the neighborhood were under the impression that the bear would be tranquilized and returned to the mountains until word spread that Fish and Game had said it couldn’t be done due to the fact that hunting season had just started, that very day! What? The argument was made that a potential hunter in the future may kill that very bear, eat the meat and then get sick from it. What if they had tranquilized the bear the day before it was hunting season, wouldn’t it have meant the same possible outcome? And do people really kill bears for the meat much less eat bear meat? Apparently so!
Another potential reason floating around in the air for not saving the bear: money and how much it would cost the city (which is suppose to work for the people). How much money did the whole morning of doing nothing constructive to begin to help that bear even think about coming down that tree, when it could have at least been tranquilized at a safer distance from the ground and taken back to the mountains, cost us? Of course, waiting till the cover of dark, and late into the night to kill it without our seeing it, (do we really know when it happened, yes we do: when no one was there anymore to witness it, no crowd of people to chant save the Bear!) And that folks, was apparently the best plan they could come up with.
I walked down to Rainbow Bridge just before they closed on Saturday evening. On my way I asked one of the officers where the wildlife folks were, and weren’t they going to tranquilize it and return it to the mountains? He responded maybe, maybe not. Was he trying not to lie? Had they already shot it with a tranquilizer and were they now really waiting for it to fall?
Then I heard the most outrageous thing and I must say amazing and complete optimism coming from people in Rainbow Bridge who were spreading the word police had told them: that they had blocked off Signal as part of a plan to give the Bear a straight shot to the mountains when it eventually came down. As Robert Peake’s said an officer put it: “escort the bear back to the woods”. Ludicrous! I mean seriously! This is a wild animal, this isn’t a Hollywood Bear! Black bears can reach running speeds of 40 miles per hour for short distances! There would be no escorting the bear back to the woods! That’s when I knew they were waiting for us all to go home. It was now time to kill the bear.
What with Farmers Market the next morning in Shangra La and so many people who didn’t have a clue, it would be over and done with by the time people woke up. Did they really believe the authorities were going to let this Bear find his way to the mountains? Do people really believe that the authorities would have any control over following or watching this wild animal find it’s way back as they apparently suggested they might? The answer, outrageously, is yes. And what amazing public relations! It worked! I even tried to believe it!
On my way home from Rainbow Bridge, I was so angry, I stopped and talked to some of the on lookers there just after 9pm. They had mentioned how the bear had started to come down the tree but then scurried right back up. Of course, they didn’t know if it was shot with a tranquilizer and that’s why it went back up (if that’s indeed what had already happened as I am suggesting it may have by then).
I came home distraught and called Julie Tumamait to ask what if anything she thought I could do. She felt like I did at 7am that morning, that if everyone would just leave, it would somehow be better for the bear.
Julie supported the idea to go back down there and tell people to go home, that they weren’t helping the bear by being out there. On my way home, I said a prayer and the thought crossed my mind that as soon as people were gone, they would kill the bear. I wondered if what I knew that ultimately meant (bringing the whole ordeal to an end that much sooner) was more humane for the bear, or if calling the news crew and friends and or even just showing up myself and staying up all night to literally “bear witness” was a better choice.
I didn’t know what to do. I felt completely paralyzed. I felt trapped like the Bear.
Still, I hoped against all hope for a miracle and so I started thinking maybe I had gotten it all wrong. Maybe the Ojai I remember from the “good old days” still existed and we’d certainly find a peaceful, humane way to help this animal. After all, the question in my mind was: inability or choice? I mean certainly we could figure out how to get this bear in our own back yard back to the mountains! We’ve done it several times before! Look at the strength and determination of that bear! Why couldn’t we, shouldn’t we, match it.
I went to bed talking to that Bear, asking if this was his final gift to us, his way of leaving all of us and Ojai with something really important to think about? What should we think? That for the first time in thirty years here in Ojai everything is as dry as it can be and there’s scarce water for the wild animals to drink? That the bear was a spokesperson for other animals, (if a squirrel comes we don’t notice it because it’s so small). We watch and hear about the polar caps melting and what it’s doing to the polar bears and yet we don’t take notice that the effects are right here too!
Can we worry about this bear and now grieve him, but in daily actions forget how we treat each other?
I’d like to believe that the officers did have the best intentions and ultimately only followed orders. And I’d really like to know who gave the orders and why? Really why? Did killing the bear prove worthy of the police officers time and our money?
I awoke early in the morning sometime near 6am thinking of the Bear and wondering how long it actually took it to die no matter how drugged it was or where they took it or what they did with it after.
In my opinion, it’s a whole lot more then money we lost with the death of this bear. It’s our consciousness, which is after all what the bear’s medicine is all about. A lot of folks I know who have lived here a long time are starting to leave Ojai, saying it’s just not what it use to be. But God forbid it not be the Shangra La we tell the tourists it is. Don’t forget we don’ t have a drug problem supposedly, or gangs or youth violence or racism or homelessness and we probably don’t kill bears even though we just did. So I’m thinking for folks who are thinking out there, if nothing else, let’s go inward this winter like the bear and travel to the core. Let’s attune our selves to the energies of eternal mother and meditate on what this means to our town and each other. And let’s for God’s sake learn something from this bears medicine awakening the power of the un/sub-conscious, and showing us how unconscious this was, let’s prevent killing these animals that live in our valley along side us, so needlessly and I’m sorry, yes, so disrespectfully.
Today the bear, through a client, thanked me for mine and others concern. So you see, the truth is always beyond your ability to be comfortable with it. So if you seek comfort in the world, be sure you will not know what the truth is….you cannot decide truth. It already is.
From the book, Animal Speak:
“The bear is often considered among Native American peoples as kin to humans because, like birds, it can stand and walk upon two legs. For many, the bear and the wolf are the last true symbols of the primal, natural world, and many ecologists believe that how humans respond and protect their lands and their future will be the most honest depiction of how serious humanity is about preservation of our environment and the natural resources within it…
If a bear has shown up in your life, ask yourself some important questions. Is your judgement off? How about those around you? Are you not recognizing what is beneficial in your life? Are you not seeing the core of good deep within all situations. Are you being too critical of yourself and others? Are you wearing rose colored glasses?
Bear medicine can teach you to go deep within so that you can make your choices and decisions from a position of power…and don’t foget the tree is a powerful and ancient symbol just like the bear. A natural antenna, linking the heavens and earth, it represents knowledge, it is a symbol of fertility, of things that grow. As bear teaches you to go in and awaken the things inherent, the tree serves as a reminder that we must bring what we awaken out into the world and apply it – make our marks with it. Anyone with a bear totem should keep the cub in themselves alive and occasionally climb trees – if only to get a clear perspective!”
Note:
Originally Posted as Comment #24 Posted by: Carol L. Healy | October 12, 2009 11:11 AM
Posted Under: Bear’s Death Deserves a Constructive Community Response
http://www.ojaipost.com/2009/10/bears_death_deserves_a_constru_1.shtml
Related Articles :
More Ojai Residents Speak Out About the Killing of the Aliso Street Bear
Part One in a series on the Ojai Community’s response to a killing of a black bear in Ojai.
http://www.ojaipost.com/2009/10/more_ojai_residents_speak_out.shtml
Please see Part One for more related articles and websites.
(To be posted here as soon as I have time)

Tagged as: aliso street bear