Something's got nature all stirred up. Perhaps it's global warming that has the area wildlife unsettled, or it could just be the normal wildland interface interactions we've seen before.
The Daily Bulletin has an article about a young bear that was captured in Upland Wednesday night. The bear had been seen earlier in Claremont, according to the Bulletin piece:
Claremont resident Whitney LoCicero said she took a photo of the bear in front of her house in the 700 block of Marlboro Court.
"It didn't scare me," LoCicero said. "Everyone else freaked out. But I was like 'Oh my god, he's so cute, I just want to pet him.'"
Then there was Courier's Tony Krickl, who blogged about the hawk that dived bombed him near the Metrolink parking lot in the Claremont Village. Krickl wrote that another hawk has been harrying visitors to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens (does this make the bird a hawk or harrier?):
This morning a reader called in to warn that another hawk was attacking people in the Metrolink parking lot on First Street. I went down there with my camera to check it out. As I was walking through the parking lot looking for the culprit, I got slammed in the back of the head.
The hawk then landed in a nearby tree, waited for about a minute and took another swipe at me. This time I ducked out of its way, but I managed to get a couple photos in. Clearly pestered with my presence, the hawk swooped down a couple more times before I headed back to my car, tail between my legs.
Claremont police showed up at the Metrolink lot a short time later to see what they could do, if anything. Lieutenant Shelly Vander Veen told me that they might post a sign similar to what's at the Botanic Gardens: "Hawks Nesting Aggressive."
Krickl also had a bear-related post on Wednesday morning. The bear in question was spotted near Base Line Rd., according to Krickl. We don't know if this is the same bear that was captured later that day in Upland.
For folks living in a foothill community, these wildlife encounters are inevitable. We see them every year, from mountain lions to bears to coyotes. For bears, the enticement of trash day is irresistible. A reader sent us a photo of a bear they saw lunching casually in North Claremont:
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