Multiple reports of bear sightings along Maria Ygnacio Creek up above Cathedral Oaks Road came in to neighborhood watch member Jack Armstrong from alarmed residents in late September. A couple nights later, by which the time the sightings had stopped, a bear was reported killed in traffic on US 101 South at Fairview.
Armstrong, a retired city fireman and retired major in the U.S. Army, said, “We have never had any sightings reported that I’m aware of — this group is only about three years old and as far as neighborhood reporting or sighting, these were first bear that we’ve seen." His group is called the Maria Ygnacio Neighborhood Safety Association.
All the sightings took place on September 29 near the streets of Via Regina, Via Campobello, and San Marcos Road, which are a few blocks away from Foothill School. The bear was first seen strolling up Via Regina in the middle of the night by Chuck McPartlin. He was looking through a telescope on his driveway at approximately 1 a.m., said McPartlin, who is an astronomer with the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit, when he began to hear noises coming from a neighbor’s chicken coop.