A Monrovia family made a startling discovery in their backyard on Monday when they spotted a hungry mama bear and her cubs helping themselves to some Cocoa Krispies that they had taken from the family’s garage.
Resident Michael Kunch filmed the bears from close range as they feasted on the treats — which were stolen from a garbage can — on the patio right outside his home.
He described how he first found the bears on his property.
“A mama and her two cubs came out of the back end of the garage, from the other side of the van that I didn’t see,” Kunch told KTLA. “And I thought, ‘Oh, whatever you want, you can have. See you later.'”
Kunch added that his young daughter thinks the bears are cute, but also knows that they can be dangerous.
“We keep our distance,” he said. “They are the wildlife here, we moved into their area. We just have to be respectful of them, not disturb them, kind of just back away when we see them, and we film them at a distance.”
The incident was the latest in a string of bear sightings in the area over the past few months.
The bears usually appear about every three to four days, and are especially active on trash days, according to Monrovia resident Ashley Howie, who is Kunch’s neighbor.
“You can see the struggle and the need for food because of the drought up here. It’s kind of eliminating all of the vegetation that we have up here. So they are more desperate for food and water nowadays,” Howie said.
She added that the bears didn’t seemed to be bothered by the cameras at all, and that they mostly ignored onlookers and kept eating.
Some residents have taken to locking up their trash bins to keep the bears away, but–as was visible in the video–that does not seem to be doing much good.
Howie told KTLA that residents have been keeping a safe distance from the bears.
“You know, you stay of their way, they’ll stay out of yours. You respect them, they’ll respect you,” she said. “So it’s peaceful up here. You kind of learn how to deal with the bears.”
