Man brawls with bear after pet dog chases it into back garden

Mother and cub tranquilised in Los Angeles suburb close to San Gabriel Mountains

A man has been injured in a suburb of Los Angeles after he reportedly “scuffled with a bear”, when his dog chased a bear cub into a back garden and the mother followed.

The mother bear attacked the man, who had apparently intervened to help his dog.

He reportedly saw the larger animal coming after the dog and in an effort to protect his pet kicked the adult bear, who then slashed the man on his calves and bit the back of his right knee, police told local news outlet KTLA5.

CBS Los Angeles said firefighters responded to the call of a bear attack in the 500 block of Hermosa Avenue just before 2pm on Monday.

The mother bear was tranquilised on the house’s driveway by California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, but the cub then climbed up into a tree.

“I saw the cub up a tree, he was gnawing on branches,” a young girl told KTLA5 news reporters.

Before they were able to tranquilise the cub, they had to wait for the effect of the tranquiliser to take hold of the mother bear.

Eventually the pair were both loaded into the back of a pickup truck.

The man, who is in his 50s, was taken to hospital, but did not receive serious injuries. The dog reportedly escaped uninjured.

It is thought the bears will be tagged and relocated.

The incident happened in the Sierra Madre suburb of Los Angeles, which is north of the city centre and about half a mile from the edge of the Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Mountain foothills.

Bear sightings are relatively common in the area – a man sleeping in the foothills outside Sierra Madre survived an attack by a bear earlier this year, and a hiker was also attacked in the forest in 2016 and said he was “fortunate” to survive the encounter.