MONROVIA, Calif. — It is scary enough to encounter a live bear. Imagine finding a dead one in the front yard.
That is what a California woman woke up to on Sunday, which begs the question -- who, or what killed the bear? It turns out that it was an unfortunate accident, but moving the animal’s corpse proved to be even more problematic.
Amy Spada, of Monrovia, said she disregarded a loud noise outside of her home on Saturday at about 10:30 p.m. PDT, KTLA-TV reported.
“I thought maybe it was a firework, or a car accident … I didn’t think much of it,” Spada told the television station. “A little while later, there was some police action in the condo complex, so I went out to see what was going on, and two rows over, police were saying that a bear got hit by a car on Foothill Boulevard, and it’s injured and it’s hiding behind one of the bushes close to my house.”
The car, which had been going about 45 mph, was severely damaged, the Los Angeles Times reported. The driver was not seriously injured, police told Spada.
Spada said her husband was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. PDT on Sunday to a “mournful sound,” according to the newspaper.
Stepping onto the balcony, Spada’s husband found the bear below, “moaning and groaning and lying on the ground,” the Times reported.
Spada’s husband called the police, but the animal had died by the time they arrived.
When Spada walked out of her house on Sunday at about 7 a.m. PDT, the bear, which appeared to be an adolescent, was covered with a sheet and cordoned off with yellow police tape, KTLA reported.
It was “horrible, just horrible,” Spada told the Times.
Police told her the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would remove the bear’s remains, but it had not been moved by 3:30, the Times reported.
That concerned Spada, who was worried that the corpse would begin to decompose, attracting flies and coyotes, according to the newspaper.
It was unclear if or when the corpse was removed from Spada’s yard.
The DFW did not immediately respond to messages from the Times on Sunday afternoon
She told the Times that Monrovia gets a fair share of wildlife wandering into the area from the nearby foothills. Bears are common, along with coyotes and deer. All have been killed by motorists in the area.
“They are down here constantly,” Spada told KTLA. “We had a bear about a year ago trying to get into the pool area, and I know a lot of people around the same neighborhood (that have had) bears go in their pools and try to look for food. It’s just really sad.”
