A mother black bear and her three cubs were pulled from a concrete cistern in La Verne late Saturday night, ending a rescue that began after runners heard a strange cry in Marshall Canyon Regional Park and traced it to the tank. By the time crews were done, all three remaining bears had been declared safe.
The rescue mattered because it unfolded during a dangerous heat wave in Los Angeles, and the bears were found in water on a day when La Verne reached 97 degrees. Jamie Kirk, one of three Glendora residents who found them around 8 a.m. Saturday, said the runners followed a howling, whimpering sound to the opening and saw the mother bear staring back at them. One cub had already climbed out on its own before help arrived, leaving the others trapped inside.
Crews from the Urban Search and Rescue team worked with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to drain the tank and keep the mother and the remaining cubs from drowning. Rescuers widened the small vent hole the bears had fallen through and placed a ladder inside so they could climb out. The Fire Department later shared video of one bear hauling itself to the top of the tank before disappearing into nearby bushes.
What happened inside the cistern remains the part nobody can quite explain. Officials said the animals may have gone in because they were thirsty, which fits the heat and the water, but it does not say how a bear family ended up able to drop into the tank in the first place. The timing also shows how dangerous the situation had become: the bears were trapped for at least 12 hours, and possibly much longer, before crews got them out Saturday night.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife said the tank is now being secured so bears or other wildlife cannot get trapped there again. For Kirk and the other runners, the rescue ended where it began, at a hole in the ground and a noise they could not ignore. For the bears, it ended with a ladder, dry ground and a narrow escape from a cistern that could have turned deadly.
