Poachers Shoot Deer on East Norumbega
I received this email late Saturday
Cyrus – the police and animal control were on Norumbega just east of you down in Sleepy Hallow today. A deer had been shot. We got word from Tom Adams back in October that the headless remains of a bear had been found. Residents should be on the lookout for poachers and keep an ear peeled for the sound of shots. An errant shot by one of these idiots, whether gun or bow, could be deadly to a resident. If these poachers don’t care about breaking the law by shooting within city limits, I doubt they’ve given much thought to the safety of those of us who live up here.
I’m also wondering how many animal shootings come to police attention but aren’t reported to the public. We should be informed so we know what’s going on.
Re: The headless bear. I talked with both of Monrovia’s animal control officers and both said that the dead bear in question still had her head. I also know someone who spoke with the California Fish and Game officer who was present and he said it looks like the bear died of natural causes. But I also personally know some of the Fish and Game officers who work in the area and they are known not to be truthful with the public. Many times they have told the public that they were relocating a troublesome bear to the wilds when they actually relocated the bear to the dump.
Some one isn’t being truthful. Either Tom Adams is lying or Monrovia’s animal control officers are lying. Either way, I don’t like to be lied to. And any city official who’s not honest should either be fire or removed from his or hers position.
As for the deer. If the deer’s carcase was found and wasn’t field dressed, it wasn’t a poacher. It was just some jerk head who gets off from killing. A poacher would have carried the deer off and field dressed it some where safe. Poachers kill for food when game is out of season or in an area where hunting is prohibited. In some cases they take game for a trophy.
Back in the 1990’s there were a few bow hunters who use to illegally hunt bear during bear season in the Cloverleaf and Clamshell canyons. But once the Suess family moved up in to the foothills, they brought an end to the bear hunting in these canyons. Bear hunters aren’t easy to spot. They are camouflaged and they usually hunt at the crack of dawn. But these bow hunters can’t wait until the wildlife preserve is opened to the public. That will give them legal access to the National Forest boundaries where they can legally hunt.
This has not been officially confirmed. A neighbor who lives next door to Sleepy Hallow ( East Norumbega )told me this morning that she heard gun shots around Christmast time and a woman who lives there said a bear was shot and its paws were removed. 2 days later there was a man in camaflouge with an arrow but animal control did not think it was the same person who shot and killed the bear. The bear that was killed was the mother bear to the two small cubs. She also said the cubs were in her pool the next day.
Consequently, we had a bear break another one of our sprinkler pipes and had our yard was flooded for almost a week. It was not something we enjoyed or anticipated spending our time with a broken pipe that sprayed water 10 feet in the air on Christmas afternoon.
I’m sure each of us is affected in different ways by the wildlife we live with in the neighborhood. What I’m wondering is why animal and game do not relocate the bears that live in the area. These are bears that no longer hybernate and live off the food from trash cans. Its just a matter of time before someone or animal gets hurt.
Did a little research concerning the large population of bears in the Monrovia foothills.
Back in the year of 1933, the state of California captured a large number of black and brown bears in the Sierra’s and relocated them to the foothills in and around the city of Monrovia.
The purpose was for increasing the bear population in the area for the benefit of hunters. The more bears there were, the better odds hunters would have bagging a bear during bear season.
It was also around this time that liberals with in Monrovia and the city government wanted to end hunting in the foothills above Monrovia. They contacted California Fish and Game and requested that the southern portions of the San Gabriel Mountains (foothills) above Monrovia be closed to hunters.
I would say when a bear causes property damage, the owner should send a bill to the city for being reimbursed. It was the city of Monrovia who knew that bears were being relocated in large numbers in the foothills of Monrovia and once the bears were relocated they pushed for the State of California to put the foothills off limits to hunters.