Jonathan Rinderknecht, the 29-year-old man accused of setting the January 1 fire that may have flared up a week later to ignite the January 7 Palisades Fire, is facing multiple arson-related counts in federal court. Rinderkecht has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors may have an uphill fight convincing a jury that the accused is responsible, but he is one of very few alleged arsonists in the Santa Monica Mountains to ever face charges. Most of the significant wildfire-related arson fires in this area remain unsolved. Cover design by Urs Baur.
The bears have left the canyon. BB-14 (Black Bear 14, also known as Yellow #2291) and her three cubs were recently spotted in Encino, presumably on their way to the San Gabriel Mountains.
BB-14 first visited Topanga in 2024. She traveled safely back and forth between the San Gabriel and Santa Monica Mountains—a monumental undertaking for a bear in the era of high-speed traffic and nearly insurmountable barriers like the 101 freeway and high-density urban sprawl. She must have liked what she found here, because she returned to Topanga this spring with her three cubs.
The bear family spent the summer in and around Topanga—the first black bears to make the local mountain range their home in recorded history and the first bears of any kind to live here for more than a hundred years.. Topangans accepted their new neighbors with the tolerance and open-mindedness that characterizes this community, and many will miss the presence of this unusual family.
BB-14 is a smart and lucky bear who has somehow managed to successfully navigate numerous road crossings. There’s a good chance she may return to Topanga, but high speed roads and freeways are incredibly dangerous even for large animals like bears. Roads are inimical to wildlife, and freeways are almost insurmountable barriers. Topanga’s bear family is a prime example of why wildlife crossings are needed.
While BB-14 and her little family were making their way out of the Santa Monica Mountains the first native plantings were being installed on top of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over the 101 freeway at Liberty Canyon.
The crossing is the largest and most ambitious of its kind. It will reconnect the Santa Monica Mountains to the other mountain ranges that encircle Los Angeles, offering wildlife a safe way to cross one of the busiest freeways in the country.
The plants used to landscape the overpass were grown from seeds collected within a five-mile radius of the project. By the time the next phase of construction is complete at this time next year, those plants will have grown into their own small ecosystem, providing shelter for wildlife. While the local mountain lions have become the face of this project, not all migrating wildlife is large and fast moving. Smaller animals, including lizards, snakes, rabbits, squirrels, insects and even birds are expected to benefit from the crossing. It’s to be hoped that BB-14 and her descendants will also make use of the crossing, because every time they cross the freeway the odds are high it will be the last time, and the luck of even the luckiest bear could run out at any time.
We wish mama bear and her three cubs happy trails and hope this little family stays safe.
Topanga is famous for being a “hippie enclave,” or for being lamented as having been a hippie enclave and no longer being that, but this community is far more complicated. The bears were a reminder of that. Topanga is and has always been a haven for free thinkers, artists, craftspeople, actors, writers, and musicians, but it’s also rooted in its cowboy/vaquero homesteading history. Topanga has always had its unhoused population. More recently it has become a desirable destination for the wealthy, but all of these people, from all of those different backgrounds, were able to make room for a family of bears. We heard a lot of support for the bears this summer, and some legitimate concerns, but on the whole, the community made way for them, accepted them, and looked after them, because this is Topanga, and its spirit is present despite the changes the years bring.
And speaking of spirits, one thing Topanga doesn’t seem to have is ghosts. The late Al Martinez, Topanga resident and celebrated journalist, mocked Topanga’s lack of the supernatural in a 1988 Los Angeles Times column. He did find one account of an apparition at a house in his neighborhood that could “glide through walls,” but dismissed it as “leftovers from the canyon’s free-floating hippie era who, strung out on mescaline, believe they can do the same thing.”
Here at TNT, our repeated calls for ghost stories from our readers have yielded only silence. We’ve had plenty of UFO sightings over the years, but no gray specters who haunt the peaks, and no dark shadows lurking at the bend in the road. We didn’t ask this year. What we’ve lived through so far during this year of disaster and endurance has provided enough terror to last a lifetime.
Stay safe, be well. Happy Halloween!
