Caitlin Estrella was awake in the middle of the night comforting her daughter after a nightmare when she got an phone alert from her home security camera: animal detected.
Usually, Estrella said, this meant a squirrel, skunk or the occasional stray cat. This time, she stared in disbelief as a large black bear strolling through her yard filled her phone screen.
“I couldn’t even comprehend what I was looking at,” Estrella said. “It was so wild. I had to do a double take.”
The bear passed through the Terra Linda neighborhood around 2 a.m. Tuesday. It is the second bear sighting recently, following one a few weeks ago in Larkspur. In 2021, a black bear was spotted in a tree in San Anselmo.
Bear encounters are still rare in the area, mostly due to unregulated killing of the Point Reyes population that rendered them extinct by 1901, according to the National Park Service.
“It’s still not a ton, and usually it happens in places with more open space … and typically in West Marin,” Marin Humane spokesperson Lisa Bloch said of bear sightings. “It’s rare to see them this close.”
On Tuesday, Estrella quickly woke her husband, who asked if she was sure it was not just a large dog. She showed him the camera footage and he was “floored,” she said.
The two quickly checked that all the doors and windows in their house were locked. Estrella has family in Tahoe, and remembers videos and stories of bears opening car and house doors.
“I wasn’t taking any chances,” she said.
Estrella grew up in San Rafael and remembers no warnings about bears. She said this is one of the reasons it was so shocking — nobody had heard of a bear coming near the area.
Bloch said she does not anticipate a rise in black bear encounters in the county, and added that it could be that security cameras are just making people more aware of their presence.
Estrella called authorities around 2:30 a.m. and an Marin Humane officer arrived along with San Rafael police officers. The video footage shows a bear walking up a path to a door and sniffing garbage bags along the way. The bear, which was on Las Gallinas Avenue near Las Colindas Road, entered the front yard and then came around the side of the house.
The animal is likely a young male in search of a mate or food — May, June and July is the time of year young bears will often search for new territory to call home.
Items like open compost bins, garbage bags, pet food, bird feeders and fallen fruit can attract bears. Residents are urged to keep pets inside or on a leash, to put garbage bins out the day of pickup instead of the night before, to thoroughly clean barbecue grills, tightly secure all lids to outside bins, and to consider removing bird feeders from yards.
Residents who encounter a black bear can make loud noises — clapping and yelling, for example — and slowly back away. Bloch said the main thing is to never corner a bear, especially near a house where a clear escape route is not visible. Feeding the bear, or attempting to get close for any reason, is dangerous and can also, ultimately, result in the death of the bear as it might desensitize it to humans.
“The goal is to keep everyone, including the animal, safe,” Bloch said.
By the time Estrella and her husband secured the house and were about to open the front door to scare the bear away, it was already leaving the yard. The encounter lasted about five minutes, she said.
While she initially felt shock, Estrella said she feels more happy and fun emotions now that it is over.
“My kids want to name him,” she said.
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