Big Bear Tale Proves True in Chase in Dark

Alan Perches said he felt a little sheepish Saturday morning when he saw a large black bear outside his Northridge home and nobody seemed to believe him.

Perches said he was awakened by his dogs barking shortly before 1 a.m. He opened his front door and saw a 200- to 300-pound black bear walking in the street in front of his home in a hilly residential area north of Rinaldi Street and west of Reseda Boulevard.

The bear, fender-high to a neighbor’s Cadillac, walked on all fours into a neighbor’s yard.

Sleepy Disbelief

“Sure, Al, yeah, sure there’s a bear out in the front yard,” his wife, Marilyn, said when he woke her up to tell her.

The City of Los Angeles’ 911 emergency line was polite but equally dubious. When a police helicopter and ground unit came to the Perches home in the 18700 block of Algiers Street and couldn’t find any sign of the bear, Perches said, “I felt like a damn fool.”

“I really did see a bear and I haven’t been drinking,” he said he told police.

But Perches, 44, was vindicated about an hour later when he saw four police cars and an animal regulation truck parked around the corner from his house on Dulcet Avenue.

“I got out and walked over and asked one of the police officers, ‘Has anybody else seen it?’ He said ‘Hell yes, he walked right in front of the police car. He darn near ran over the car.’ I said to the officer, ‘Hey, would you mind coming over here for a minute and telling my wife?’ ”

Chase Not Successful

Police and officers chased the bear up a driveway, and then lost him behind a house, police said. Two animal control officers, assisted by a police helicopter, continued searching the hills until shortly after noon Saturday, but gave up without finding the bear.

“He may be curled up in somebody’s back yard sleeping or he could be by now several miles from here or back up into his own territory,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Bill Fleming.

Theresa Micjan, an animal control officer with the city Department of Animal Regulation, said the bear probably wandered out of a nearby canyon.

Micjan said that although her department’s officers were armed with equipment to kill the bear, they would do so “only if it comes down to the public’s health and safety. If the bear were to go wild and start going after the citizens, then the animal would more than likely be shot, but that’s only as a last resort.”

Animals Were Common

In June of 1982, a 6-foot bear wandered into Granada Hills and was shot by a Los Angeles police officer when he lunged at an animal control officer.