The Bear Problem; We Used to Have This Figured Out

If you’ve lived here long enough, you remember when Mammoth Lakes had someone whose entire job was managing our relationship with the bears. A familiar face who knew the bears by name, kept people safe, and kept our wildlife wild instead of dangerous. We let that go. And in the years since, it feels like we’ve been playing catch-up ever since, with more incidents, more close calls, and a police department that’s stretched thin trying to handle something that used to have a dedicated expert on it.

RIP Victor the Bear

This isn’t a hypothetical problem. It’s a current one... bears in dumpsters, bears in garages, and occasionally, bears and people getting hurt. That’s not okay, for the bears or for us.

I think this town can do better, and honestly, I think we already know how, because we’ve done it before.

A few things I’m looking into:

Bringing back dedicated, on-the-ground wildlife expertise. This town has proven, for decades, that a proactive approach works far better than a reactive one. I want to know what it would take to have that again.

Real accountability for the source of the problem. Bears aren’t breaking into our lives out of nowhere, they’re following food and trash. I want to look closely at who’s actually being held accountable when trash and dumpsters are left insecure, especially on the commercial and larger-property side, where the current approach doesn’t seem to be working.

Funding it without pretending money grows on trees. Every proposal needs a real answer to “how do we pay for it,” and I’m not interested in promising something I haven’t thought through.

More details are coming as my platform develops, but the short version is this: we used to get this right, and I don’t think it’s too late to get it right again.

— Lakota