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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Just wait until the mountain lions and brown bears start prowling around looking for snacks :-)

For folks further out into the 'human/wildlife interface' as the Forest Service calls it (or the 'cafeteria' as I call it) sightings of all wildlife is up. Some friends who retired out in Brentwood[1] (not the LA neighborhood, the town outside of Livermore CA) They now have nearly continual deer presence and multiple daily sightings of Coyote and Fox around mid-morning and dusk. They have heard mountain lions but haven't seen one yet, and no bears so far.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brentwood,+CA+94513/@37.90...

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For what it’s worth, there aren’t thought to be any brown bears left in California; the closest ones are in Washington or maybe Idaho.

This is largely a matter of local lexical confusion. In the US, "brown bear" can mean two things: a black bear with a brown coat (ursus americanus), or a grizzly (ursus arctos horribilis, which makes me giggle every time).

Across the pond, "brown bear" probably means ursus arctos arctos, a cousin of our own more foul-tempered beasties.

But when a Californian says "brown bear", usually they just mean a brown-coated black bear (https://bear.org/black-bear-color-phases/).

> But when a Californian says "brown bear", usually they just mean a brown-coated black bear (https://bear.org/black-bear-color-phases/).

Well that's confusing. Whenever I hear brown bear (in hunting contexts, etc) I assume grizzly.

Idaho. There hasn't been a confirmed grizzly bear sighting in Washington since the late 90s. They're presumed to be extinct in WA.

They're there, though. https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/gri...

EDIT: Also https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/grizzly-bear-distribut...

I hadn't seen that news about someone seeing a grizzly in the Cascades. I've been to the North Cascades several times. Ranger guidance has always been "There aren't really any meaningful populations of grizzlies here. We're pretty sure that, if there is one here, it's a transient from Canada."

You still have to take bear precautions there because of black bears, though.

Probably. "Confirmed" just means that, if someone saw one, nobody was able to officially corroborate the sighting.

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