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Mammoth Residents Pay Tribute to Victor the Bear at Town Council Meeting

Mammoth Residents Pay Tribute to Victor the Bear at Town Council Meeting

Observant, self-aware animal owners fully understand most of their pets’ bad behavior has been taught to them by their owners, who in turn are usually the only people who have to put up with that bad behavior. Unfortunately, a bear, Victor, euthanized near Mammoth Lakes on August 21, was caught between his defensive instincts and his pursuit of an easy snack.

A presentation of the episode was included on last week’s Town Council meeting agenda, drawing a large crowd to both hear the details and voice their disappointment at the loss of Victor. The timeline started when the Mammoth Police Department was notified of the incident by Mammoth Hospital. Some of the timeline is muddled; the victim and her daughter speak Spanish, so the sequence of events may have been lost in translation. The daughter spoke via Zoom at the meeting through a translator.

According to George Struble, Mammoth Lakes Police Department assistant chief, there had been three people/bear encounters since late July starting at Lake George, followed by an incident at Cold Water Creek where a camper took a selfie 6-feet away from a bear, and then the Lake Mary Campground incident. Victor was identified as the bear through DNA samples obtained from the victim’s wound at the hospital. Victor was on the list of public safety bears, those who have been habituated and would not run from human contact.

Victor was euthanized and his body taken to the Bishop landfill to avoid other wildlife ingesting the drugs used in euthanasia. According to Steve Searles, Mammoth’s former wildlife officer whose job with the Town was eliminated for budgetary reasons, tribal members retrieved the body and buried Victor at an undisclosed site on tribal lands.

Suggestions to avoid repetition of the event included an information network similar to Mammoth Lakes Tourism focusing on not just what to do and where to go, but what not to do at campsites to avoid encounters with bears. The emphasis was on educating campers rather than trying to “educate” the bears. Bears know they have to pack on the pounds in preparation for winter hibernation—eating everything in sight is their driving force as winter approaches.

On a personal note, dealing with animals requires understanding how the animal operates. Example: Arabs are considered one of the more intelligent breeds of horses. That intelligence is a double-edged sword as it focuses on survival since their only real defense mechanism is flight. They remember “scary” things that happened at a particular location years after the initial incident. If you allowed them to run on a specific section of trail, they will always want to run at that exact spot. If their rider “is in a mood,” the horse mirrors that mood. Once a rider figures out how a control themselves, controlling the horse is a walk in the park.

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