Black Bear Seen in Ripperdan, California

Incredibly, a California Black Bear (Ursus americanus californiensis)was spotted on the floor of the San Joaquin Valley at Ripperdan on June 23 around 7:30-9:30 PM. That's very unusual. I looked on the Internet and could not find any other reports of bears roaming around on the Valley floor.

Even historically, it was not common. Back in the old days, Black Bears tended to reside in the foothills at the lowest. Sometimes they would come down from the foothills in times of scarce food to feed on carcasses of some of the vast herds of ungulates that roamed in the Valley.

At that time, the California Grizzly Bear was the most common bear in the Valley, and it roamed all up and down this great Valley. They were also very common in the foothills. With the coming of the White man, conflicts were inevitable between settlers and Grizzlies.

They were shot all up and down California for over 100 years. By the late 1800's, they had become quite rare. The last California Grizzlies were seen and shot in the Sierra foothills around Sequoia National Park in the early 1920's.

I drove down to the Ripperdan area where the bear was sighted. There are farms - mostly vineyards and orchards - as far as the eye can see. But the San Joaquin River is only about 1-2 miles away. I drove down to the river, but it was hard to get to it due to private property signs.

At Scaggs Bridge Park, you could access the river. There was still a fair amount of water in it for this far downstream. Keep in mind that agriculture sucks so much water out of this great river that it actually goes dry at a place called Gravelly Ford.

It became clear to me that the bear had been roaming up and down the San Joaquin River, using it as a corridor to move down from the foothills into the Valley. Down near Ripperdan, it moved out of the river area and into the agricultural fields, possibly to feed on crops.

Much of the river from Friant to Fresno is now part of a great thing called the San Joaquin River Parkway, and it looks like they have preserved enough land that bears are actually using it.

A visit to the parkway site showed no records of bears using the parkway.

On the other hand though, bobcats, deer, foxes, coyotes and mountain lions do. This excellent map of the parkway shows that much of the river is now being preserved.

Even with our increasing population growth, we are setting aside so much land for preserves that to some extent animals are able to use the preserves despite the ever-expanding population. This may be why we are seeing so many large mammals making comebacks and recolonizing old territories.

There are probably about 40,000 Black bears in California, and the population has been growing lately. They are not in any kind of danger at all.

I have seen these animals up close quite a few times, and I must tell you that they are actually in general timid creatures. On rare occasions, they can become aggressive, attack or even kill. But considering the number of human-bear interactions in the US every year and the number of bear attacks, the likelihood of this occurring is vanishingly small. But I still carry a big long stick when I hike in the woods.

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