The Millard Campground near Altadena remained closed on Monday while authorities continued their efforts to find a bear who injured a camper over the weekend in the first such attack in the state.
The incident occurred about 2 a.m. Saturday, according to the Altadena Sheriff's Station. Officials have recorded 99 bear attacks in the state, all nonfatal, going back to 1986, according to data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The most attacks in a year happened in 2010 when 11 attacks were recorded, none of those occurred in the the five county Los Angeles metropolitan region.
The weekend attack came when a small bear pushed in a tent in a campground, sheriff's officials said.
"The tent came down on a male adult, and the bear appeared to be attempting to open the tent," authorities said.
The man was apparently looking at his iPad when the tent fell.
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"Two other campers saw an approximately 120-pound bear running away from the area," sheriff's officials said.
The man was treated at a hospital, where about 18 sutures were needed to close a wound on his forehead.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials were notified.
Rangers detained a bear on Saturday who was in a tree about a half mile from the camp.
"We collected the sleeping bag, the tent that was ripped. We grabbed some bear feces, and then we take blood, hair, saliva swabs from the bear. And if we have a match on the two, we know we have the offending animal," said Lt. Jon Healy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
But there was no match, so the bear was released back to the wild, Channel 2 reported.
City News Service contributed to this report.
