A Boy, a Bear and a Backyard Adventure

Christopher Carson, unlike most 6-year-olds, has never been known to tell stories spun from fantasy.

But, when he told his family Monday afternoon that there was a large bear drinking out of the backyard swimming pool in Granada Hills, they thought he had finally produced a tall tale.

“Everybody was saying, ‘Yeah, sure there’s a bear drinking out of the swimming pool,’ ” said his father, Rob Carson.

“But then he grabbed my face with two hands and said, ‘Daddy, listen to me. There is a real bear in the backyard.’ ”

And there was. A California black bear.

“At first I thought it was a big man in the pool,” Christopher said on Tuesday, standing near the pool. “I didn’t know it had ears. Then I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s a bear!’ ”

It was a scene eerily reminiscent of one in the new film, “The Lost World,” though to everyone’s relief the thirsty male bear turned out to be far less menacing than the film’s pool-water-sipping T-Rex.

He wandered around the yard a bit and climbed a tree as state Fish and Game wardens, who later said the bear weighed about 150 pounds, arrived. The wardens shot him with a tranquilizing dart, and the bear proceeded to fall asleep in the crook of a branch, said Patrick Moore, a Fish and Game spokesman.

About an hour later, the bear woke up.

“It was exciting,” said Rob Carson. “There were five Fish and Game guys waiting for the bear to wake up and come out of the tree, with their tranquilizer guns pointed at him. It was like a SWAT team.”

The bear was taken to its presumed home, the Angeles National Forest, and released.

Black bears--the only bear species found in the state--tend to pay visits to residences in the north San Fernando Valley and other foothill areas during the spring and early summer. Moore said officials have already received several reports this year of bear sightings.

“This is the season when bears come out of what we call quasi-hibernation and look for food,” he said. “In Southern California, bears don’t really hibernate, they just sleep a lot and become lackadaisical. Still, when they awaken they are very hungry.”

Moore said bears follow their noses when they search for food, so residents near mountain areas should make sure their trash cans are well sealed, pet food is not left out overnight and fruit that drops from trees is picked up.

If residents see a bear around their home, “they should just leave it alone and call authorities,” Moore said. Black bears are not normally aggressive, he said--unless someone gets between the bear and its food.

Carson said that after a few local television news appearances, Christopher was something of a celebrity at school.

“He had show and tell in his class,” his father said. “He wanted to take our raft . . . because it has big teeth marks in it, but I thought the story would be enough.”