Mother bears and cubs battle for survival as wildfire, drought and traffic take heavy toll

An orphaned bear cub walks along a mountain road affected by the Dixie fire in Plumas County in August 2021. “I can’t think of a worse situation for wildlife — bears running for their lives from fire and then getting whacked by cars,” said Fraser Shilling, director of the Road Ecology Center at UC Davis. “I knew those bears were from someplace else,” Searles said, “because I had made it my business to know every bear in Mammoth Lakes from the day it was born to the day it died.” Led by a sense of smell 100 times keener than that of humans, the newcomers were lured by the odor of dog food, koi ponds, restaurant dumpsters brimming with scraps, and manicured lawns and gardens. “Several factors may lead to an increase in bear-vehicle collisions in the eastern Sierras, particularly in September and October,” Rodriguez said, “including their need to consume more than 20,000 calories per day prior to hibernation, continued drought in typically wet habitat and wildfires that remove seasonal food sources.” But last year, she added, “black bears likely traveled further distances than normal to find resources, thus encountering roads and highways more often.” Many bears on the move are pregnant females desperately searching for food and water in unfamiliar terrain; in late December, the area was suddenly buried in a record-breaking 17-plus feet of snow. “A lot of female bears in the Sierra Nevada range were taken out of commission by all the forces working against them last year,” Shilling said.