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Bear climbs tree in Rosamond backyard
| Thursday, Jul 17 2008 2:52 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jul 18 2008 7:26 AM
Even a bear sometimes needs a vacation.
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But the 300-pound black bear who made a day trip to a house in Rosamond on Wednesday nearly gave homeowner Linda Cummings a heart attack.
Cummings was leaving water for her ducks and chickens at about 6 a.m. when her dogs started barking. She turned around, expecting to see another dog.
Instead, she saw a bear.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Cummings said.
The bear walked near the fence on Cummings’ property at 5603 105th Street West and took a swipe at her dogs. Cummings screamed for her husband and son and the bear jumped over the 4-foot fence into the yard and started running to the house’s sliding glass door.
Losing track of the animal, Cummings for a moment thought it had entered the house. She ran inside and looked around but then heard a rustling and saw it in a tree about 15 feet from the back door.
She was amazed at its quickness.
“Never in my life have I seen anything so fast and so agile and just moving with no effort at all,” Cummings said.
Her husband stood nearby with a gun while Linda Cummings called deputies. The deputies and Animal Control officers soon arrived and a long waiting game began. The bear refused to get out of the tree.
Animal Control Senior Officer Steve Eirich said he stayed at the residence until about 1 p.m., but had to leave on another assignment. Cummings did the right thing by staying indoors and calling 911, he said.
Finally, after eight hours, the bear climbed down and decided to take a nap on top of a freezer in a backyard shed. A trap was set up and Linda Cummings cooked some bacon and poured honey over it and left it in the trap overnight. Thursday morning, the bear was gone. The animal wasn’t in the trap and Linda Cummings said she’s not sure where it went.
The animal’s clear, piercing eyes are something that will stay with her.
“Believe me, when you’ve been looked at by a bear, you know you’ve been looked at,” she said.