First black bear tagged and tracked in Santa Monica Mountains.

A rare black bear, the first to make its home in the Santa Monica Mountains in decades, has been tagged for research by National Park Service biologists. The male bear, estimated to be 3 or 4 years old, was captured and fitted with an ear tag and GPS radio collar. Biologists think the bear could be the cub that made headlines in July 2021 wandering through a Thousand Oaks neighborhood. The Santa Monica Mountains haven’t had a resident bear population since the late 1800s, when grizzly bears last inhabited the region before they were hunted to extinction in California.