Founded in 1849, Downieville, population 300, is one of California\u2019s oldest towns, and also one of its quaintest. Colorfully painted wooden buildings sit at the junction of two rivers, beneath majestic pines and mountain peaks.<\/p>\n
Along with tourists, who flood in in the summer for rafting and mountain biking, the town also receives frequent visits from bears and mountain lions. More recently, wolves have arrived with deadly force, snatching domesticated cattle off the open pastures that stretch across the plains on the other side of the mountains east of town.<\/p>\n
Miller wound up here about a decade ago, at the end of a rich, complicated life. She had worked in an oil refinery, and also as a contractor. She was a master gardener, expert at transplanting Japanese maples, according to her neighbor, Patty Hall. She was a voracious reader and a skilled pianist. But she also struggled with a variety of serious ailments and substance abuse, according to neighbors and officials.<\/p>\n
Longtime residents in the area were used to the challenges of living among wild animals. But in the summer of 2023, Sierra County Sheriff Mike Fisher said he started getting an overwhelming number of calls about problem bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had three or four habituated bears that were constantly here in town,\u201d said Fisher. \u201cThey had zero fear. I would say, almost daily, we were having to go out and chase these bears away, haze them.\u201d<\/p>\n
But bears have a sharp sense of smell, a long memory for food sources and an incredible sense of direction. If a tourist tosses them a pizza crust or the last bits of an ice cream cone, or leaves the lid off a trash can, they will return again and again, even if they are relocated miles away.<\/p>\n
That summer, Fisher said, no matter what he did, the bears kept lumbering back into town. It was unlike anything he had experienced, he said, and he had grown up in Downieville. \u201cA police car with an air horn or the siren, we would push the bear up out of the community. Fifteen minutes later, they were right back downtown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And then there were the bears harassing Miller and her neighbors.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were three bears,\u201d recalled Hall, who lives just up the hill from the home Miller rented. \u201cTwice a night they would walk up and down our [porch] stairs. The Ring cameras were constantly going off.\u201d<\/p>\n Fisher said some of Miller\u2019s neighbors complained that she was part of the lure, because she was not disposing of her garbage properly. Some also alleged she was tossing food on her porch for her cats \u2014 and that the bears were coming for it. Miller\u2019s daughter later told sheriff\u2019s officials that bears were \u201cconstantly trying\u201d to get into her house, and that \u201cher mother had physically hit one\u201d to keep it out. One particular bear, which Miller had nicknamed \u201cBig Bastard,\u201d was a frequent pest.<\/p>\n Fifty miles from Downieville, in the Lake Tahoe Basin, the Bear League was getting calls about Miller, too. The organization, which Bryant founded more than two decades ago, seeks to protect bears by helping residents coexist with them. This includes educating people about locking down their trash and helping to haze bears away from homes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got calls [from her neighbors] that told us she had been feeding the bears, tossing food out to them, and let them come into her house,\u201d Bryant said. She added that some thought, erroneously, that the Bear League was a government organization, and \u201cmaybe we had the ability to enforce the law\u201d against feeding bears.<\/p>\n Hall, Miller\u2019s friend, told The Times that Miller was not feeding bears. Still, the problems continued.<\/p>\n Eventually, officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were called and told Miller she could sign a \u201cdepredation permit,\u201d after which authorities could kill bears trying to get into her house. But Miller declined to do so, Fisher said.<\/p>\n In early November, Miller stopped showing up around town, prompting calls for a welfare check.<\/p>\n A little before 3 p.m. on Nov. 8, 2023, Deputy Malcolm Fadden approached Miller\u2019s home, which was a short walk from the sheriff\u2019s office. The security bars on the kitchen window had been ripped off. The window itself had been busted from the outside.<\/p>\n \u201cI knocked on the door,\u201d Fadden wrote in his report, but got no answer.<\/p>\n Through the window, he saw blood streaked across the living room floor. He took out his gun and burst into the house, where he was greeted by a giant pile of bear scat. He found Miller in the kitchen, her half-eaten body surrounded by food and garbage, which, Fadden wrote, had been \u201capparently scattered by bears.\u201d<\/p>\n Fisher was horrified. Already frustrated at what he saw as the Department of Fish and Wildlife\u2019s lackluster response to the escalating bear incursions that summer, now he wanted the bear that had fed on Miller to be trapped and killed.<\/p>\n He said the department told him that for the bear to be killed, \u201cthe person who lives at the house has to sign the [depredation] permit.\u201d Fisher said he responded: \u201cHow many times do I have to tell you the person who lives at that house was eaten by the bear?\u201d<\/p>\n This was the start of a long-running conflict between the sheriff and agency officials that would complicate the release of the autopsy findings about Miller\u2019s death, and also convince Fisher that more aggressive steps were needed to protect his community.<\/p>\n Eventually, Fisher managed to get a depredation permit for the bear that had fed on Miller; his deputies tracked down her landlord, who as the homeowner could sign it. Wildlife officials set up a trap near Miller\u2019s house, and in short order, a bear was caught.<\/p>\n But, according to Fisher, officials initially said it wasn\u2019t the same bear. They said DNA tests showed that the bear who had eaten her was male, and the bear they had caught appeared to be female. They intended to release the bear, he said.<\/p>\n Fisher padlocked the cage, and threatened to call the media. In response, he said, wildlife officials sent a biologist, who determined the bear in the trap was male. It was shot that night.<\/p>\n At that point, few people, including Fisher, believed that the bear had actually killed Miller, as opposed to feeding on her after she died of natural causes. Though there are recorded instances of fatal black bear maulings in other U.S. states, they are rare, and there had been no reports of one in California. Fisher issued a news release saying that the death was under investigation, but that \u201cit is believed that Patrice Miller passed away before a bear, possibly drawn by the scent or other factors, accessed the residence.\u201d<\/p>\n After performing an autopsy, however, the pathologist on contract with Sierra County came to a different conclusion. She issued a report that found that Miller had \u201cdeep hemorrhage of the face and neck\u201d as well as \u201cpuncture injuries (consistent with claw \u2018swipe\u2019 or \u2018slap\u2019).\u201d These injuries, she noted, were \u201ccharacteristics more suggestive of a vital reaction by a living person.\u201d In short: The pathologist found that Miller was probably killed by the bear.<\/p>\n Because of Fisher\u2019s feud with Fish and Wildlife, that autopsy report, dated Jan. 4, 2024, wouldn\u2019t become public for months.<\/p>\n Fisher said the state agency was refusing to provide him with copies of the DNA analysis of the bear that had been trapped in Miller\u2019s yard. He wanted to see for himself that it matched the DNA evidence collected at her home, saying he hated the thought that a bear that had feasted on a person might still be roaming his town.<\/p>\n \u201cI requested DNA from Fish and Wildlife, and they refused to provide it to me,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I withheld the coroner\u2019s report. We stopped talking.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he verbally told department officials that the pathologist believed Miller had been killed by the bear \u2014 a seemingly noteworthy development. He said that officials responded: \u201cI guess we\u2019ll see when we get the report.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email to The Times, state wildlife officials confirmed that Fisher had verbally shared the results of the autopsy report, but said they felt they needed to see the report to do their \u201cdue diligence before making an announcement about the first fatal bear attack in California.\u201d The agency had sent an investigator to the scene after Miller\u2019s death, who like Fisher and his deputies, thought the evidence suggested she had died of natural causes, said agency spokesperson Peter Tira.<\/p>\n By the time Fisher got the autopsy report, it was deep winter in the mountains, and bear activity decreased. Then came spring, and along with the blossoms, the bears came back to Downieville.<\/p>\n Bears were knocking over trash cans and breaking into cars. In May, residents on Main Street reported that a bear had broken into multiple houses, including one incursion that involved a bear standing over 82-year-old Dale Hunter as he napped on his couch.<\/p>\n A few days later, a bear tried to break into the cafeteria at Downieville High School while students were at school.<\/p>\n Fisher declared the bear a threat to public safety. Fish and Wildlife eventually issued a depredation permit, and the bear was shot.<\/p>\n That led to a story in the Mountain Messenger, the local paper. In it, the sheriff dropped a bombshell: \u201cMiller was mauled to death after a black bear entered her home,\u201d the paper reported. The story went on to say that the sheriff had made \u201cnumerous attempts\u201d to inform Fish and Wildlife \u201cabout Miller\u2019s death and more recent dangerous situations.\u201d<\/p>\n After the story ran, state Sen. Megan Dahle, a Lassen County Republican who at the time served in the Assembly, set up a conciliatory meeting between Fish and Wildlife and Fisher. They have been meeting regularly ever since, Fisher said.<\/p>\n Fisher got his DNA results confirming that the bear trapped in Miller\u2019s yard was the same bear that had eaten her. And Fish and Wildlife officials finally got a copy of the pathology report, which said Miller was probably alive when she encountered the bear.<\/p>\n The revelation made headlines around the state. \u201cWe\u2019re in new territory,\u201d Capt. Patrick Foy of Fish and Wildlife\u2019s law enforcement division told the San Francisco Chronicle.<\/p>\n Bryant and other bear advocates found the release of such a significant finding so long after the fact confounding.<\/p>\n \u201cI absolutely do not believe it,\u201d Bryant said. If the bear had killed her, Bryant added, \u201cthe evidence should have been so clear, like immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n The Downieville saga unfolded as bears seemed to be making news all over California.<\/p>\n To many, it seemed there were just many more bears encroaching on human settlements. A Fish and Wildlife report released last month estimated there are now 60,000 black bears roaming the Golden State, roughly triple the figure from 1998, the last time the department issued a bear management plan. That\u2019s the highest population estimate for anywhere in the contiguous U.S., although the report also suggests that California\u2019s bear population has been stable for the last decade.<\/p>\n In the Lake Tahoe area, where 50,000 people live year-round and tens of thousands more crowd in on busy tourist weekends, bears were breaking into houses and raiding refrigerators; they were bursting into ice cream shops and strolling along packed beaches.<\/p>\n State and local officials went into overdrive, trying to teach residents and tourists how to avoid attracting bears. The state set money aside for distribution of bear-proof trash cans and \u201cunwelcome mats\u201d that deliver a jolt of electricity if bears try to break into homes.<\/p>\n The Bear League stepped up its efforts. From a small office on Bryant\u2019s property, the organization\u2019s 24-hour hotline was ringing, and volunteers were rushing out with paintball guns to haze bears and to advise people on how to bear-proof their houses.<\/p>\n The tensions continued to escalate, nonetheless, between people who wanted to protect bears at all costs and those who wanted some problem bears trapped and relocated \u2014 or killed. In 2024, after a homeowner in the Tahoe area fatally shot a bear he said had broken into his home, many people were outraged that the Department of Fish and Wildlife declined to file charges.<\/p>\n Advocates also complained that the state has fallen behind in its efforts to help people and bears coexist. In recent years, the state had hired dedicated staff to help people in bear country, but the money ran out and some of those people were laid off, said Jennifer Fearing, a wildlife advocate and lobbyist.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the tools to minimize human-wildlife conflict in California,\u201d Fearing said. \u201cWe need the state to invest in using them.\u201d<\/p>\n In Sierra County, the sheriff had come to a different conclusion. \u201cWe\u2019ve swung the pendulum too far on the environmental side on these apex predators,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Fisher found common cause with newly elected GOP Assemblymember Heather Hadwick. \u201cMountain lions, bears and wolves are my biggest issue. I get calls every day about some kind of predator, which is crazy,\u201d said Hadwick, who represents 11 northern counties.<\/p>\n In February, she introduced a bill, AB 1038, that would allow hunters to sic trained dogs on bears to chase them through the woods, but not kill them. While California has a legal hunting season for bears, it is strictly regulated; the use of hounds to aid the chase has been banned since 2013.<\/p>\n Hadwick argued that hounding bears would increase their fear of humans, which she said some are starting to lose: \u201cWe\u2019re keeping them in the forest, where they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n Wildlife advocates showed up in force last month to oppose Hadwick\u2019s bill in an Assembly committee hearing. Sending hounds after bears is cruel, they said. Plus, hounding bears in the woods would have no impact on the bears knocking over neighborhood trash cans and sneaking into ice cream stores.<\/p>\n Fisher testified in favor of the bill, and spoke of Miller\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Lawmakers listened, some with stricken looks on their faces. But in a Legislature controlled by Democrats, Hadwick did not garner enough votes to send her bill on to the full Assembly; it became a two-year bill, meaning it could come back next year.<\/p>\n Fisher returned to Sierra County, where he has continued to advocate for locals to have more power to go after predators. The current situation, he said, is \u201cout of control.\u201d<\/p>\n