Mexican housing boom threatens black bears

[depakid]

MONTERREY, Mexico, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Housewife Aurora Cela was getting ready for bed one night this summer when her neighbor shouted "Bear, bear!" and a big black animal scampered through her back garden, around her house and down the street.

More than 30 American black bears have been sighted in and around the city of Monterrey in northern Mexico since April, some in gardens trying to drink from swimming pools and others in schools and on building sites as they seek food and water.

A housing boom in Monterrey, Mexico's richest city 140 miles (225 km) from Texas, risks destroying the officially endangered bears' habitats in the surrounding forested mountains. It is also accelerating Mexico's loss of primary forest that are disappearing at one of the world's fastest rates, environmentalists say.

"When I saw the bear, I felt like he was invading our land, but then I realized that it is us who are invading theirs," said Cela outside her new house, perched on a built-up hilltop, which until a few years ago was home to native oak and pine trees.

Hunting reduced the local black bear population by 80 percent until the mid-1980s, when they became an endangered species in northern Mexico. Laws passed in the 1990s made it a criminal offense to kill a black bear in Mexico, helping populations recover.

A construction worker was arrested in June for capturing a bear that later died of respiratory arrest caused by stress. The government has handed out leaflets across the city warning people not to feed or harm the animals.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN14340518