The terrifying day a wayward bear made his way onto the UC Davis campus

Where was he going and how did he get here are questions that still have not been answered

The other day, in a casual conversation with one of Davis' ardent no-growthers, I was informed that wildlife in our town has been greatly diminished by housing developments over the years.

Given that this person had moved here seven years ago and I've been here nearly 10 times that long, I figured I had a strategic advantage in this impromptu debate.

After all, when our family moved here from Portland long ago - and by a 4-3 vote decided to bring me along for the ride - the town of Davis had a population of 3,000 people, just one elementary school and absolutely no stoplights.

Then, as now, of course, the town was surrounded by wildly productive ag land, with sugar beets and tomatoes dominating the landscape.

The young woman picked to wear the crown at the annual Yolo County Fair was known as the Sugar Beet Queen, which, if you've ever seen a sugar beet, is not exactly a flattering title.

You'd think with all that open land around us back then that Davis would have been overrun with wildlife. Such was not the case.

Sure, there were exceptions, but not often. For instance, one foggy December morning we did discover a disoriented pheasant in our backyard, but when my brother and I drew near, it attempted an airborne escape, only to crash headlong into the top of the wooden fence we shared with the Vaughn family next door.

We did not have it for dinner.

As opposed to today, where squirrels run wild and free in every Davis neighborhood, I never once saw one of these critters while I was growing up.

If we wanted to see squirrels, Dad would drive us to Capitol Park in Sacramento, where they were abundant.

There were no raccoons, coyotes, skunks or turkeys in Davis either.

Mom did once find a possum trying to sneak into the garage and shooed it away with a broom and a loud voice, but that was it. Dad, being Irish, told us it was more properly an opossum. Turns out, he was right.

Now, of course, Davis has more species calling our town home than I have fingers and toes.

A short while ago, our neighbor's cat had been missing for over three months, despite his face being plastered over every light pole in town.

Then one night he emerged from the storm drain up at the corner along with a family of raccoons who insisted he was one of them.

And I swear I saw possums trick-or-treating door-to-door last Halloween night. Even more proof of our currently abundant wildlife is that I can't drive the backroads to Woodland without spotting a coyote or two.

And then there are the turkeys, who have stopped more traffic at inopportune times than do our frequent freight trains on the railroad tracks that divide our town in half.

There were no turkeys when I was growing up here, except wrapped in the freezer case at State Market on the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

Bears in Davis?

Not in my youth.

And yet, on one warm June morning just five years ago, UC Davis issued a "WarnMe Alert" that said, in all-caps, "BEAR SIGHTED ON CAMPUS LS WB FROM SOLANO PARK TO ARBORETUM AREA. FISH AND GAME ON SCENE. STAY AWAY FROM THE AREA."