Bears keep swimming in Los Angeles pools
For the third time in less than a week, a Los Angeles area resident captured video of a bear in their pool.
Ed Afsharian shared video with KTLA, which showed another instance of the growing trend of bears trying to beat the heat by taking a dip in a backyard pool.
The video shows a mother bear and a cub playfully swimming around in a pool at a home in the foothills of La Cañada Flintridge, about 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Afsharian said the video was taken around noon Monday after the bears climbed the neighbor’s fence to get into the pool.
The bears played around for about 30 minutes, splashing around and cooling off. They also tossed around a garbage can before going on their way.
The homeowners say they’ve lived in the neighborhood for 25 years and have heard of bear sightings in the area, but they’ve never had a bear visit their pool.
A mother bear and her cub were seen splashing around in a backyard pool in La Canada on July 31, 2023. (Ed Afsharian)
Just last week, a similar video in the same city showed a mother bear and a cub splashing around in a hot tub.
While both videos feature a mother bear and a cub and both were taken in La Cañada, it’s unclear if it’s the same bear and cub as seen in Monday’s video.
Nearby in the city of Burbank, another bear was seen cooling off in a hot tub in a backyard last Friday. Video shared by the Burbank Police Department showed the bear sitting upright in the hot tub, looking almost like a guest of the homeowner.
“I was upstairs and I heard a lot of commotion and some beeping sounds,” homeowner Diana Lewis said. “And here he was, just having fun in the jacuzzi. Very happy.”
That bear eventually left the hot tub and scaled a tree where it remained for several hours before finally coming down and returning into the Verdugo Mountains.
A bear sits in a jacuzzi in Burbank as police watch from afar in this video shared by the Burbank Police Department on July 28, 2023.
Lewis said she was fine letting the bear cool down in her hot tub, but officials are warning the public that bears, however cute they may appear, should never be fed or approached and it’s best that humans and bears keep a safe distance from one another.
As temperatures continue to soar, wildlife officials say bear encounters are more likely to occur.
To reduce the likelihood of having a bad encounter with a bear, the National Park Service has a list of tips and tricks to avoid encounters, as well as what to do if you come face-to-face with one of the apex predators.
Some of those tips include talking calmly to the bear so it knows you’re human and not prey, getting as big as possible and remaining calm. You should never run from a bear, climb a tree to escape the bear or allow the bear to eat your food.
For more tips, including when to play dead and when to fight back, click here.
Source: KTLA Los Angeles
