Biologists track adventurous black bear near Malibu, the first to get a GPS collar

A male black bear spotted last month in the western Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area near Malibu became the first bear in these parts to be captured by officials and fitted with a radio collar, which is being used to track its movements.

Biologists say the bear is likely the only one roaming this part of the mountains south of the 101 Freeway. Dubbed “BB-12,” the 210-pound, 3- to 4-year-old adult bear likely crossed the freeway to reach that stretch of wilderness, said Jeff Sikich, wildlife biologist with the U.S. National Park Service, who for 20 years has led the study of mountain lions roaming the region.

“”Yeah, this is definitely rare,” Sikich said on Wednesday, May 3. “We assume it came from the north, where other bears in the past have left the Santa Susana Mountains. He may cross again. Now we will know. But the 101 (freeway) around there is a formidable barrier. Most animals don’t attempt to cross it.”

BB-12, a lone, large mammal in a remote stretch of the recreational area, can be likened to the famous mountain lion, P-22, who crossed two freeways and spent a lonely 10 years within Griffith Park. P-22 died in December from illness and complications from being struck by a car and was feted to a sold-out crowd at the Greek Theatre in February.

Like P-22, the bear lives alone, with no evidence of a breeding population nearby. P-22 never found a mate after becoming isolated inside Griffith Park, the only mountain lion to live there. He became a cause celeb for wildlife protection and helped inspire the wildlife crossing now under construction that will span the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills, and which is set to open in 2025.

On April 23, biologists located BB-12, sedated the large bear and performed a full workup, taking samples and conducting body measurements while attaching an ear tag and placing a GPS radio collar around its neck. The animal appeared to be healthy.

Scientists know very little about this bear. Since most area black bears live in the Santa Susana Mountains, north of the 118 Freeway or in the Simi Hills, south of the 118, Sikich presumes that BB-12 migrated south about two years ago for unknown reasons.

“He appears to be the only bear here in the Santa Monica Mountains, and he’s likely been here for almost two years based on our remote camera data,” said Sikich. “This seems to be our first resident bear in the 20 years we have conducted mountain lion research in the area. It will be interesting to see how he shares the landscape with our other resident large carnivores.”

Wildlife cameras captured images of a bear rambling along Reino Road in Newbury Park in July 2021. Since then, cameras showed flashes of a bear in the Santa Monicas, roughly from Malibu Creek State Park to the mountain’s western border in Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County.

But Sikich said he and his team cannot be 100% sure this is the same bear seen on cameras.

“We had been picking it up on our remote cameras, and it is likely the same bear,” he said.

The bear wandered into mountain lion country. But other studies of multi-mammal populations sharing the same habitat show the bear can definitely hold its own against the king of the forest.

In fact, bears have been known to take over mountain lion kills, such as deer. “The bears will take it,” Sikich said. “Once the mountain lion smells the bear, the mountain lion would rather avoid the confrontation.”

Biologists who follow the mountain lions will now have a bear to watch for the first time, he said. In 2016, a bear was found dead beneath a landslide in Malibu Creek State Park. And in 2006 one was hanging around Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks. A bear was killed while crossing the northbound 101 that year, the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) reported.

With BB-12 alive and well, they can study its movements, a first in this part of Southern California. Most bears are found in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains. They are frequent visitors to eastern L.A. County foothill communities.

“We are interested in its diet, how he will interact with the mountain lions and whether bears are crossing roads and freeways. With the radio collar, we hopefully will get answers to those questions,” he said.

Bears are omnivorous, meaning they eat almost anything, including roots, grubs, lizards, amphibians, squirrels and fish — if they can catch one. They also enjoy eating out of people’s trash cans. Like the cadre of mountain lions in the study, this bear is living in a fragmented habitat surrounded by major freeways and not far from residential communities, such as Topanga, Agoura, Malibu and Thousand Oaks, he said.

So far, there have not been reports of BB-12 in residential neighborhoods. Since attaching the radio collar about 10 days ago, Sikich said footage shows him “cruising around the western areas of our mountains.”

Unlike grizzly bears which became extinct in California in the early 1900s, black bears, Ursus americanus, are not native to Southern California. About 30 black bears were brought into the region from Yosemite National Park in the 1930s, the NPS reported. From that initial group, they grew and spread, biologists said.