A Bear of a Capture

OXNARD — Two months after a bear was killed as it wandered onto California 126, a 300-pound black bear cub was captured on an Oxnard ranch Friday evening and safely returned to the wilderness.

But for 10-year-old Michelle Friedrich, the cub that led authorities on a five-hour chase on her grandfather’s ranch was quite a sight.

What began as a bear sighting about 3 p.m. near Rio Mesa High School, 545 Central Ave., turned into an all-out hunt for the male cub.

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies searched on the ground and in the air, while county animal control officers and wardens from the state Department of Fish and Game trudged through lemon and avocado groves.

When the bear proved too much for a healthy dose of tranquilizer, bloodhounds were brought in to help surround the animal.

Morgan Wehtje, Fish and Game’s wildlife biologist for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said the bear’s mother probably pushed it out of its home in the Ojai back country. Female bears give birth every other year, and if the cubs are still around the next breeding season, either of the parents will shoo the older cubs away.

From there, they make their way to the Santa Clara River, and follow it south toward the ocean.

“At this time of year, the heavy west winds blow, and they may pick up the scent of the strawberry fields,” Wehtje said.

Once the bears make their way to flat land, they get disoriented and head to a spot that resembles a forest--and an orchard will do.

When Wehtje caught up with the animal, she shot it twice with tranquilizer darts. But that didn’t stop the bear; it just climbed about 100 feet up a eucalyptus tree in the center of John B. Friedrich’s ranch at 4101 Santa Clara Ave.

A sheriff’s helicopter couldn’t scare the animal down.

That’s when ranch tenant John Gagnon, 47, tried to coax the bear down with paint-gun pellets.

“He was up there looking at us, and I started working him,” Gagnon said.

Eventually, the bear fell through the branches and landed at its captors’ feet.

“I felt kind of bad. That dude hit the ground. Big thud,” Gagnon said.

Authorities thought the bear was out of steam. But the cub proved them wrong, staggering to its feet and heading back into the rows of avocado trees.

Chris Velenzano, an 18-year-old Sheriff’s Department Explorer from Camarillo, was on his way home from his job in Ventura when he heard about the “Yogi incident”--a description used by more than one county dispatcher.

“I ended up chasing the bear and holding it down. It’s not something Explorers usually get to do,” he said.

At 7:45 p.m., officials delivered the final tranquilizer dart, bringing the bear under control. After it was loaded onto a Ventura County Animal Regulation truck, the black bear cub was taken to a private ranch north of Lake Casitas.

“This was scary,” said Michelle, who lives in Santa Paula. “I’ve seen all kinds of coyotes here, but never a bear.”

But as her uncle Joe pointed out, the 330-acre John B. Friedrich ranch has had its share of four-legged visitors you wouldn’t expect to find in an avocado orchard, including a monkey about 20 years ago that wandered from an exotic animal park operating in Thousand Oaks.