(KTLA) – For the third time in less than a week, a Los Angeles area resident captured video of a bear taking a dip in their pool.
Ed Afsharian shared video with Nexstar’s KTLA, which shows another recent instance of bears entering someone’s backyard to take a swim.
The video shows a mother bear and a cub playfully swimming around in a pool at a home in the foothills of La Cañada Flintridge, about 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Afsharian said the video was taken around noon Monday after the bears climbed the neighbor’s fence to get into the pool.
The duo played for about 30 minutes, splashing around and cooling off. They didn’t exactly leave quietly – Afsharian said the mother and cub tossed around a garbage can before going on their way.
The homeowners said they’ve lived in the neighborhood for 25 years and have heard of bear sightings in the area, but they’ve never had such a visit.
Just last week, a similar video in the same city showed a mother bear and a cub splashing around in a hot tub.
While both videos feature a mother bear and a cub, and both were taken in La Cañada, it’s unclear if it’s the same bear and cub as seen in Monday’s video.
On Tuesday, a KTLA viewer shared video of another bear splashing around in a backyard pool. The viewer said it happened around 10:45 a.m. at a short-term rental in Azusa.
In the nearby city of Burbank, another bear was seen lounging in a backyard hot tub last Friday. Video shared by the Burbank Police Department shows the bear sitting upright in the hot tub, looking almost like a guest of the homeowner.
“I was upstairs and I heard a lot of commotion and some beeping sounds,” homeowner Diana Lewis said. “And here he was, just having fun in the jacuzzi. Very happy.”
That bear eventually left the hot tub and scaled a tree where it remained for several hours before finally coming down and returning into the Verdugo Mountains.
Lewis said she was fine letting the bear cool down in her hot tub, but officials are warning the public that bears, however cute they may appear, should never be fed or approached and it’s best that humans and bears keep a safe distance from one another.
As temperatures continue to soar, wildlife officials say bear encounters are more likely to occur.
To reduce the likelihood of having a bad encounter with a bear, the National Park Service has a list of tips and tricks to avoid encounters, as well as what to do if you come face-to-face with one of the apex predators.
Some of those tips include talking calmly to the bear so it knows you’re human and not prey, getting as big as possible, and remaining calm. You should never run from a bear, climb a tree to escape, or allow the animal to eat your food. For more tips, including when to play dead and when to fight back, click here.
