Ojai group shares ideas on co-existing with bears

• By Anne Kallas
• Ventura County Star, Jan. 29, 2010

There was no shortage of passion among the 30 members of the new Ojai Wildlife League who gathered this week in an Ojai living room to figure out their goals and plans.

Formed in response to a Fish and Game warden’s Oct. 10 killing of a black bear that had wandered into the 200 block of Aliso Street in Ojai, the group has been meeting regularly to try to figure out ways to head off such incidents in the future.

Sue Williamson, who hosted the meeting Thursday night, said she has put so much work into creating an organization to deal with bear encounters because “it just struck a chord with me.”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s sort of a gut thing. I’ve always been very political,” the retired artist said. “I’ve never focused on animals before. It’s been a revelation to learn more about the role of animals in our lives and in our environment and in our ecology.”

Williamson invited Anna Reams to offer guidance to the group Thursday. Reams runs Wildlife Care of Ventura County, a volunteer group based in Simi Valley that rescues and rehabilitates animals, with the goal of releasing them into the wild. The group does not rescue bears, deer or mountain lions.

Reams warned the group that having an adversarial relationship with the California Department of Fish and Game, which was responsible for euthanizing the bear, would be counterproductive.

“Ninety-nine percent of what you need to do is educate the people. The first thing is you have to act as a whole, so bears end up knowing that Ojai isn’t a place they want to visit,” Reams said, adding that the group needs to teach people how to properly secure their trash and deal with bear encounters.

Because Ojai has so many orchards, it will always be attractive to bears, Reams said. The group needs to contact naturalists and other bear experts to try to figure out how to manage encounters so they don’t become lethal, she told them.

Williamson said Ann Bryant, who heads up the Bear League in Lake Tahoe, which was formed to help people there live in harmony with bears, will visit Ojai in April. She will tour the town to evaluate bear attractants and then give a public lecture about the issue. An exact date has not yet been set.

Williamson said the group also will meet with Fish and Game Chief of Enforcement Nancy Foley on Feb. 11 to discuss the October incident and how the group can help prevent another such confrontation.

Ideas discussed Thursday included distributing educational brochures at community events, and creating a network of trained volunteers who could respond during wildlife incursions to control crowds and help the animal leave on its own.

“We have to live with them. If a bear walks into town and sits on your porch, you can’t harass it. They will leave. This is one of the most important things this group can do — to get people to stay away,” Williamson said.

For more information about the Ojai Wildlife League, call Williamson at 640-0187 or visit http://www.ojaiwildlifeleague.com.

Santa Barbara News Press

No charges in mountain lion case: Fish and Game urged action against woman who tried to save pair of wayward cubs

SCOTT STEEPLETON, NEWS-PRESS CITY EDITOR

December 10, 2009 6:56 AM

The Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office will file no charges against a woman who took into her possession briefly two mountain lion cubs found wandering in a Solvang neighborhood earlier this year.

In a Dec. 2 letter obtained by the News-Press, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jerry Lulejian informed Julia Di Sieno, executive director of the nonprofit Animal Rescue Team Inc., that she faces no prosecution in connection with the April 3 incident.

“We are exercising our discretion by choosing not to proceed either criminally or civilly,” Mr. Lulejian wrote. “But we want to impress upon you that you could have either criminal or civil liability in the future for any violations of your permits from the (California) Department of Fish and Game.”

The tale of the cubs drew widespread criticism from animal rights proponents not only because of how the cubs were treated but also because of how Ms. Di Sieno was treated as a result of her actions on the cubs’ behalf.

After receiving the letter on Wednesday, Ms. Di Sieno told the News-Press she is happy with the outcome.

“Nobody was against what we did.”

What she did was tranquilize the apparently undernourished cubs that were found foraging in a trash can at a condominium complex near Aarhus Drive and Fifth Street, and take them to her rescue facility in Santa Ynez, offering to care for them until they could be returned to the wild or at least sent together to a zoo.

Instead, Fish and Game took the cubs from Ms. Di Sieno because she lacked the proper permit.

From there, they were split up.

As first reported in the News-Press, one was ultimately sent by plane to New York where the animal was paraded around the tarmac on the back of a motorized cart by a baggage handler.

The plane ride, according to the director of Binghampton Zoo at Ross Park, panicked and spooked the animal because its carrier was not covered properly.

The other cub ultimately found its way to the Folsom Zoo.

“It’s been spayed,” said Ms. Di Sieno. “She’s doing well and seems to tolerate her keepers well.”

Fish and Game sought to punish Ms. Di Sieno over the incident and forwarded its investigation of the events of that April evening to the district attorney for review.

Meanwhile, Fish and Game found itself embroiled in another controversy in connection with the Oct. 10 shooting death by warden Roland Takayama of a California black bear that wandered into an Ojai neighborhood.

The incident prompted Democratic Santa Barbara Assemblyman and 2010 state attorney general hopeful Pedro Nava to request a face-to-face meeting with Fish and Game chief Don Koch.

That meeting never took place, because on Oct. 21, Mr. Koch announced he would resign his $143,000-per-year post of 18 months as of Nov. 1. In his resignation letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Koch said the move was not related to his duties.

While all of this was going on, prosecutors were looking into Fish and Game’s complaint against Ms. Di Sieno. In a letter dated Nov. 13, Mr. Lulejian wrote that she faced possible civil penalties over the unlawful possession of a mountain lion.

The penalty was a minimum $250 fine.

Noting his office’s policy “to discuss any legal action” with proposed defendants or their attorneys, Mr. Lulejian offered Ms. Di Sieno two weeks to give her side of the story.

They met on Nov. 23.

“After speaking with you at length about the incident and noting your honesty and willingness to have no further violations of your permits,” Mr. Lulejian wrote in his Dec. 2 letter, “this office has decided to exercise its discretion and not file either a criminal or civil prosecution against you.”

The prosecutor warned Ms. Di Sieno not to overstep any permit or memorandum of understanding she may have with the state.

“You recognized what you had done was wrong in this situation and acknowledged the fact that your MOU/permit issued by the Department of Fish and Game does not allow you to handle or possess mountain lions.”

Ms. Di Sieno, who recently moved her rescue facility to a new location in Santa Ynez, maintains she took action to help the cubs because there was no warden around to do so.

“We had the crates, we had the animal ambulance, we had the tranquilizer gun, we had a vet on standby,” she said.

“And we had a place to take them.”

e-mail: ssteepleton@newspress.com