Jesse Van Wormer’s beloved hunting dog, a Queensland heeler cross, will no longer sleep in her large doghouse. She sleeps instead in a tunnel she dug under the doghouse after a black bear chased her away and carried her dog dish and food into the woods. The bears that invaded the family property have been gone for a year, but she still won’t go back in that luxurious doghouse.
This was part of the testimony in a misdemeanor jury trail that ended abruptly Friday at the county courthouse in Fort Bragg. After the defense presented its case on Thursday afternoon, prosecutor Timothy Stoen announced first thing Friday morning that he was withdrawing misdemeanor charges against a Fort Bragg mother of three for shooting two bears. Stoen said the dismissal was because the defense had raised reasonable doubt, praising the work of defense attorney Bart Kronfeld. After it became clear from the defense testimony that experts differed on almost everything, Stoen said he didn’t want to take up any more of the time of the defendant or jury.
Jennifer Van Wormer shot the animals outside her back door in January 2014. Cited in February, she insisted on her innocence, resulting in a jury trail that started Thursday. She was on trail on a charge of killing a cub and mother bear. Jennifer Van Wormer saw what she believed were two full-grown but smaller bears when she went outside and they came toward her. She feared for her three children inside, ranging in age from 1 to 12.
After the incident and being interviewed by game wardens, all of which she described as one of the two most upsetting moments of her life, she suffered a miscarriage, which became her third horrible life moment.
Jennifer had testified on Thursday about the family’s many efforts to scare away the persistent bears, which went from fun family curiosities to almost nightly door rattling, garbage raiding and chicken killing pests in 2013 summer and fall. Three bears were actually killed. The family had obtained a permit to kill a bear that had killed chickens and ducks and demolished farm fences at their home in Inglenook. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) trapper Chris Brennan obtained a Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) permit and set a trap. Her husband, Jesse Van Wormer, who is a sheriff’s deputy, shot a large male bear under the permit. Jennifer Van Wormer testified she was upset at the time at her husband that he had killed the large bear, saying a smaller bear had been responsible for the mischief with the family orchard, chicken house and around the house itself. Male black bears can be twice as big as females.
The case illustrated many strange complexities of California’s wildlife laws. If the bears Jennifer shot had been in the Van Wormer family chicken house at the time, there would have been no charges filed, even though their DFW depredation permit had expired. Shooting a bear in the pursuit of livestock is legal. But shooting a bear near the house where people live? Well that depends on the bear, and many other factors. Jennifer was charged with killing a “cub” bear and its mother. The controversy then became; what is a cub? Stoen said the definition of cub is less than one year old or fewer than 80 pounds. As the wardens did not weigh the animal but estimated its weight partly from a photo, the cub status could not be established in that way. An expert testified that most cubs are born in February but some are born in January. As the incident happened in January 2014, the smaller bear could have been a year old. No cub? The charge would not stick.
“All this kind of undermined that aspect of the case,” said Stoen in an interview after the trial.
Black bear numbers are on the rise across California. The estimated black bear population has doubled since 1982, when it was about 15,000. Today, the statewide black bear population is conservatively estimated at about 30,000. This also has come with increased human encounters. Bears often lose their fear when people feed them. Bears are attracted not only to food but also perfume, cologne and containers that once held food, says DFG biologists. Just before the trial started, a 67-year-old North Carolina woman known as the “Bear Lady” for feeding black bears was apparently killed by the very animals she cared for, authorities said. However this incident is very rare (and was not mentioned t the trial). Stoen produced statistics that show fear of bears is unwarranted.
The Fort Bragg jury trial brought out many controversies about California’s increasing bear population, such as how dangerous they really are and whether they break into houses with humans inside. Stoen says jurors often resent being impaneled then being sent home without being asked to render a verdict. But these jurors felt like they had learned something from the varied testimony about bears, Stoen felt. Indeed, most of the jurors appeared interested during the testimony. Jurors heard in depth and sometimes-contradictory opinions from experts.
Stoen thought his case looked good when the prosecution rested about noon on Wednesday. Stoen established bear biologist Scott Koller as an expert witness about bears. Koller says bears simply don’t break into inhabited houses in his experience. DFW Warden Joel Hendricks presented the case that Stoen had thought to be solid.
That all changed after lunch.. Fort Bragg Police Officer Joseph Shaw, next door neighbor to the Van Wormers, testified that when he was a deputy in Calaveras County, he regularly responded to bears breaking into inhabited dwellings. The Shaws, who have five children are good friends with the Van Wormers. USDA trapper Brennan, who is not a family friend, also said bears do go into inhabited dwellings.
“Would you agree that most bears will avoid people and will run when given an escape?” Stoen asked.
“There are no absolutes. Some bears will run at the first smelling of humans. Other bears I have encountered have no fear of humans, dogs or noises to scare them away… they become habituated to humans,” Brennan answered.
“In your experience do people sometimes make exaggerated reports about the bear problems they are experiencing?” Stoen asked.
“They get excited, most people don’t deal with bears on a daily basis,” Brennan answered.
Brennan estimated the number of bears in Mendocino County to be between 3,000 and 4,000. He believes the 30,000 statewide estimates to be low. Stoen asked why.
“I’ve talked a lot to bear biologists and it’s hard to count bears. I’m out in the woods and they are in Sacramento in front of a computer,” said Brennan.
Brennan does nuisance animal control in an area that runs clear up to Trinity County.
He said bears are becoming one of the biggest parts of his job.
“The 10 mile to Fort Bragg area, I’m out there all the time dealing with bears, lions and other animals,” said Brennan.
Stoen kept coming back to the apparent discrepancy between Brennan’s claims about numerous bear-human encounters and official Department of Fish and Wildlife statistics. There have been no confirmed bear fatalities in California since the 1980s. However in November, a Humboldt County man was found to have been eaten by a bear. Later, the coroner determined the man had died in the woods near his home and the bear had merely eaten his remains. Nobody had the actual facts of that case at the trial.
“If you were told that since 1980 to the present time there were only 12 recorded bear attacks would that surprise you?” Stoen asked.
“No”
“You work with Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens. Have you ever found any warden to be untruthful?” Stoen asked.
“No,” said Brennan.
“You were not present when Jennifer Van Wormer shot the two bears?,” Stoen said.
“No,” said Brennan.
Defense attorney Bart Kronfeld then tried to have Brennan deal with the conflict between the testimony of Warden Hendricks and Jennifer Van Wormer.
“You have found wardens make errors?” said Kronfeld.
“Errors?
“Mistakes,” said Kronfeld.
“All humans make mistakes,” said Brennan.
“Is it fair to say that you sometimes disagree?,” said Kronfeld.
“Yes, we can disagree at times. Sometimes there will be an investigation that finds something different than we thought at first,” said Brennan.
Stoen confronted Brennan with Koller’s expert testimony. Koller said bears simply don’t break into houses. Stoen asked him to respond.
“I’ve seen it happen. I’ve had bears try to break into my house and I have dogs,” said Brennan.
“You have encountered bears breaking into houses with humans? How many times?,” said Stoen.
“All the time,” said Brennan.
“Wouldn’t a human be attacked when a bear broke into an inhabited building?,” said Stoen, seeking to return to the negligible number of bear attacks as backing up the notion that bears don’t break in.
“Not necessarily. Humans will often retreat,” Brennan said.
Brennan’s testimony otherwise often matched that of the other experts. When a black bear charges it’s usually a bluff, not an attack, biologists say. When a black bear stands on its hind legs, they are trying to figure out what they are facing, biologists say. Bears have poor eyesight.
“The bear is winding you,” said Brennan. All that being said, should a regular person be expected to know bear psychology?
Brennan said he wouldn’t be afraid of a bear in such situations.
“That’s because I’m used to them. Most people would be afraid,” he said, responding to Kronfeld’s queries.
The Van Wormer family did quite a bit to deal with the bears without killing. They took Brennan’s advice and spread ammonia-like scents around the perimeter of the property. Fruit trees are one of the prime attractants to bears. Usually Brennan tells people to shake the fruit out of the trees and pick up fruit on the ground. But their trees were planted in 1964, by Jesse’s grandparents— too large for shaking fruit out. They picked the fruit and picked up the apples and other fruit on the ground.
“We put up a fence along the back patio to try to keep them from coming in closer. We bought air horns, a large flashlight. We went as far as to shoot a rifle in a safe direction to try to scare them away. Jesse told the court that the reaction to each of these items was the same; nothing.
“They would still linger around the area and didn’t appear to be afraid of humans at all” said Jesse.
Kronfeld asked if this meant the kids were kept in the house
“They were typically scared enough they didn’t want to go out anyway,” said Jesse. The family then obtained the legal permit from Brennan. However that permit was expired at the time of the shooting. Hendricks said Jennifer Van Wormer had asked about getting a new permit after the shooting. She denied that.
Although the Van Wormers changed the way they disposed of garbage and when they took it out, there was a question if they could have done more in that regard.
Jesse recalled coming home in the early morning hours on Mondays from late nights shifts as a deputy in Point Area.
“As I would drive up the road I would see a mile, mile and half of trash cans and typically there would be at least one bear around the trash cans,” said Van Wormer.
Stoen said (in an interview after the trial was over) the testimony of Brennan and Shaw showed that Jennifer Van Wormer might have believed bears break into inhabited dwellings when she confronted the bears outside. He said another important factor that the defense brought out is that there is apparently a significant conflict between official statistics and actual bear encounters, which may not be reported.
The most emotional moments of the trail were when Jennifer Van Wormer described shooting the mother bear, which then ran into the woods. She then shot the smaller bear, which she realized was younger by the cries it then made. This brought the mother bear back, running first at Van Wormer, then to the smaller bear.
“I had to insure it was no longer suffering,” said Jennifer.
Shaw and the Van Wormers testified that bears have not been a problem to either family since the killing of the two bears.
One of Kronfeld’s best tactics was to set up the case so that his witnesses spent a long time giving testimony. Both Van Wormers provided evocative stories about their busy lives as parents, farmers and dealing the long hours and difficult shifts of law enforcement. Shaw gave crisp answers with no embellishment. Both peace officers made for excellent witnesses who clearly connected with the jury. Stoen said he works with Jesse Van Wormer all the time and respects the man and the officer.
“This was a very uncomfortable case. I love Jessie and his work, but this office has to have the same standards with everybody. We can’t be a respecter of persons.”
Once he got what had seemed a good case from the game wardens he proceeded to trial as he would with anybody else.
The black bear has been classified as a game mammal in California since 1948. Hunting restrictions have become more restrictive in recent years, the bag limit per year falling from two to one. Hunting with hounds was outlawed in 2012. Some bear experts believe that hunting bears enhances a critically needed fear of humans. Biology texts say the black bear evolved as a favorite prey animal for large prehistoric North American cats like the saber-toothed tiger. The fearful ones that could climb trees passed on their genes. Grizzly bears once kept black bear numbers in check. The grizzly bear was eradicated in California over a century ago. The main advice from DFW about bears is to do everything possible to avoid bears making the connection between humans and food for bears.
Black bears are increasing and expanding their ranges everywhere they are currently found. They have never reestablished themselves in much of their historic range, especially the Midwest. Florida is currently considering establishing hunting for its sub species of black bears, which was once endangered but has increased tenfold in numbers in recent years, prompting human-bear conflicts there.
