Good evening,

As most Monrovians are aware, an incident occurred on Saturday, March 14th, involving a bear. A Monrovia resident, while walking her dog, was approached by a bear. The bear swiped its claw and made contact with the resident. A neighbor responded and helped scare the bear away. There were no cubs present as they were in a den underneath a nearby home. Officials captured the bears on Sunday, March 15th. 

Unfortunately during the last hour, I received a phone call from an official at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who shared the mother bear has been euthanized. The two cubs are healthy and will be relocated to a facility where they can be repopulated back into wildland areas. 

What the CDFW official also shared, is this bear was involved in a previous incident in June 2025. 9 months ago, they responded to a call where an elderly Monrovian was sitting on his enclosed porch in the same neighborhood. The bear approached him and swiped at him also causing injury. A caretaker witnessed the incident and helped scare the bear away while the resident received treatment. That elderly resident also recovered from his injuries. At the time, CDFW officials attempted to locate the bear but could not. However, they did obtain DNA from the injured resident. 

The bear DNA from Saturday's incident matches the bear DNA from the June 2025 incident. Local CDFW officials, as well as those working at state offices in Sacramento, determined the two incidents which caused human injury were sufficient justification to euthanize the bear, according to state policy.

I am sorry to share the unfortunate news. The Monrovia City Council requested and lobbied for the bear and her cubs to be relocated into the Angeles National Forest but the decision was never the City's to make. By the time we were able to speak with state officials involved in the decision-making, the decision to euthanize was already made.

CDFW will soon issue public information about the incident but we wanted to share the news as soon as we were made aware.  

Sincerely,

Dylan Feik
City Manager