A mother bear and her cubs were recorded by trail cameras at Hood Mountain Regional Park on Dec. 22, 2024.

Their eyes glinted in the darkness as they lumbered through the rugged terrain of Hood Mountain Regional Park: a mother black bear with her two cubs trailing closely behind. 

Trail camera footage captured by Sonoma County Regional Parks just before sunrise on Dec. 22 documented the first time such a sighting had been recorded since officials began tracking black bear activity there more than nine years ago. 

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“This shows that bears are not only traveling through the park, but also living and reproducing there,” wildlife management lead Sheila Murphy told SFGATE in an email on Friday. 

Hood Mountain Regional Park is part of a 3,600 acre open space that sits on the eastern edge of Santa Rosa. Black bears have been caught on camera in the area as far back as 2016, with a total of 112 unique camera detections of the species in seven Sonoma County parks, Murphy said. 37 of those sightings were at Hood Mountain.

The newfound discovery that they are raising young there is “a positive sign that the habitat is healthy enough to support them,” Murphy said, noting the only bear species found in California is “experiencing a........

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