Bear caught on video roaming Cal Poly campus, banging on door
Cal Poly students are used to seeing horses, cattle, deer and even wild turkeys on campus.
But bears?
That’s exactly what they got this week when a surveillance camera captured video of a brown-furred bear roaming around campus.
The California black bear was seen on the north side of campus at about noon on Tuesday, bounding across a parking lot before butting its head against a doors at the screenwriting software company SoCreate, which has a tenant space in the university’s Technology Park off Highland and Mt. Bishop Road.
Students saw the bear and snapped photos from a distance before the animal scampered off, said Courtney Meznarich, SoCreate’s director of community outreach.
Meznarich said that a member of the SoCreate team captured a photo before staffers checked the company’s Ring surveillance camera and found video of the bear.
Dave Hacker, a senior environmental scientist, with California Department of Fish and Wildlife, based in SLO, told The Tribune his staff has been in contact with Cal Poly about the bear, which “has been hanging around some of Cal Poly’s agricultural lands and buildings for a week or two.”
“We have been monitoring the situation,” Hacker said. “To our knowledge the bear isn’t visiting the main part of campus. The bear has not caused any reported damage and is scared of people (as you can see in the video).”
Hacker said it’s unclear why the bear has decided to be in this area, but it is likely finding some food in avocado orchards and other crop lands.
“It is a small, fairly young bear, old enough to be on its own but probably not entirely settled into a home range yet,” Hacker said. “Because of all the human activity in this area it will most likely move out on its own. There are plenty of natural lands next door into which the bear can directly move.”
Hacker added it’s the only bear sighting reported to his office in the city of San Luis this year so far.
“These types of events happen every year in our county,” Hacker said. “The major contributor to increased reports of bears and mountain lions is the proliferation of security cameras on homes and other buildings. Those are allowing people to become more aware of the animals that have been around all along.”
Wildlife officials have seen an increase in bear sightings on the Central Coast, including a number in Monterey County and Big Sur this spring, according to the Monterey County Weekly.
Jeff Cann, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the newspaper that grizzly bears once had a major presence in Big Sur and the Central Coast before they were killed off about 100 years ago.
He says black bears sightings are more common since there isn’t competition with grizzlies in San Luis Obispo County and it’s likely bears seen in Monterey County are traveling from the south.
California’s Fish and Wildlife has a tip sheet for bear sightings, including not leaving out food in areas such as campsites and homes in the vicinity of bears.
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 6:45 PM.
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