black bear encroachment.

[barefoot]

about 1 hr ago, i was sitting in the recliner watching modern marvels and flipping through a book about terrestrial fly patterns. something caught the corner of my eye out the storm door through my backyard. i looked up and saw a black bear coming down my yard toward the deck and subsequent door at a fast pace. we were looking right at each other and he stopped dead in his tracks and turned 90 degrees when i jumped up to grab my 15 month old from the doorway.

when luke was secure in his room, i grabbed camera and gave chase. poor feller was basically pinned in the neighborhood due to all of the fences and such. it was obvious he was scared to death. i followed him as good as i could as he was running in and out of yards and managed to get one picture. it is taken with a point and shoot digital next to an empty trailer a few lots away from my house. the quality sucks and i had to crop and such but here it is! it had a collar and one tag. most likely originated from kingdom come where all of the tagging takes place around here. my guess is that it is 50 miles away "as the crow flies"

over the last couple of years the tracks and signs have been getting closer and closer to my house. this is probably the very bear i have been hearing walk the ridge line above my house in the evening over the last few months. no doubt, he finally decided to come down and check things out. i guess it is time to build a bear proof trash can.

hell, it has been exciting here over the last few days. first there was a massive hunt for an escaped fugitive....now this!

enjoy!

 

[KevinNY]

Cool. There is something so much "wilder" about seeing a bear than a deer.

 

[antichrist]

Is it black bear encroachment, or human encroachment driving them closer to humans?

 

[KevinNY]

Adolescent bears go on a "walkabout" around this time of year, sometimes up to 50-100 miles, it is natures way of keeping the gene pool well mixed and making young males find their own territory. Eastern bear populations have been growing very rapidly in the last 20 years. NW New Jersey is full of black bears now.

 

[HunterAK]

Big problem here. Most of them get killed by fish and game. Unsecured trash is the number one problem. I have seen one jumping up and down on the top of a locked up dumpster til the top gave way. They should be out in the wild free to roam like this one I saw last weekend about two miles in on a 21 mile mountain bike trip on the Russian Lakes Trail in Coopers Landing, Alaska (Kenai Peninsula).

I threw in a few pics of a porcupine we saw on the trail too. Don't F-with those quills!!! The last one's me...

 

[az_max]

My parents summer house backs up to the White Mountain Apache Tribe's land. There's no houses on the tribe's side for a good 30 miles. So bears and other wild animals come over for a free meal and wander back into the forest to sleep it off. My dad has pics of them tipping over trash cans and wandering down the street in the middle of the day. Between the coyotes at their winter home and the wild animals up there I keep trying to get my dad to buy a .38 or 9mm to carry with him as he takes the dog for a walk. If something does attack, the noise and commotion may give him enough time to find shelter.

 

[MUSKYMAN]

very very cool...I agree with kevin 100%...young male looking for a home range.

we have a new one setting up camp up by our lake house right now, I feel sorry for him though there is a huge male that will most likely run him off or eat him pretty soon here.

the big guy is well over 500lbs and spends alot of the real hot afternoons laying in a low area about 1/4 mile from our cabin.

Black bear numbers are on the rise all across north america and the funny thing is its because idiots like PETA have pretty much lost the fight on hunting black bears. Black bears are kinda weird in the fact that selective harvest actually increases thier numbers by a very large margin. A dominate male being harvested will open up a area that many more subordinate males can then thrive in. Hunters are for the most part trophy hunters so when the take that dominate male the population grows as a result until the population reaches saturation.

 

[BaldEagle]

is kentucky in a drought? thats always a major factor. it's obviouisuly easier to get food in populated areas. you are much more likely to see a bear in a area such as yours then you are to see one in the wild. alot have been hit by cars locally here. back in greenville sc (my other home) a bear was spotted in the most populated, heavily trafficed area.

 

[flyfisher11]

Dang Anthony that is pretty cool. Be sure to proof it up good. My mother-in-law recently had a black bear get into her house while she slept. She lives at the base of Mt Mitchell so black bears are part of life. This one, however, kept coming up on her porch. She would flip on the lights and scare him away. He finally took it one step further and managed to open her sliding glass door and make himself at home. She is about deaf as a door nail which probably saved her this time. While she slept the bear came into her kitchen and tore through all her sweets. All he ate was cookies and a stash of Reese's cups she had. He turned some stuff over and left candy rappers and scat. She has since started locking her doors and putting a dowel rod down in the tracks of the sliding door. She also got herself a loud boat horn. She has seen him a couple more times and blew the horn but he doesn't scare too easy.

Cheers,

Mike

 

[MUSKYMAN]

yeah well its hard to beat the cougar being shot in the center of the city of chicago

 

[ptschram]

The township in Michigan that consistently has the highest number harvested, just happens to be the township where my camp is. The old guy who used to live next door to the camp shot four or five INSIDE his house! One in his car. As he put it, "can you imagine the damage a bear can do to the inside of a car?".

While they are cool as Hell, be very careful driving at night as I've been told by victims of vehicle-bear crashes that their eyes are not reflective and hitting one with a car is like driving into a concrete shadow. Then you wake up six months later in the hospital.

Max:
Buy your father a 12 gauge. A 9 m/m or .38 is only good enough to dispatch yourself before the bear rips your head off. Worse yet, a 9 m/m or .38 might be enough to make the bear want to rip your head off. It ain't gonna stop one.

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

X2


One of my jobs is animal control at a private resort. We have a yearling that's getting into dumpsters and scaring guests. My theory is that it is better to scare him off now, so that this does not become a yearly habit. For my morning rounds, I carry a 12 gauge loaded with two beanbag rounds followed by two slugs - just incase.

 

[barefoot]

well, the picture will be on the front of the local newspaper in the am. kind of funny really. i have spent countless hours and shit tons of money doing outdoor photography. now, this crappy picture shot with a 5 mp point-and-shoot kodak while running down the street finds its way to the paper?

oh well, i will be signing autographs on my deck this evening if anyone is interested

enjoy!

 

[az_max]

yeah well its hard to beat the cougar being shot in the center of the city of chicago

I thought you were going to link to this one:

http://www.thedailytube.com/video/9555/cougar-shot-dead-in-chicago

 

[EJB90]

There are bears in my neighborhood. You see one every once in a while along with a family of deer, huge families of turkeys, coyotes, and other wildlife.

The other day I was out by the pool when I noticed a bear walking in the coldesac towards my house. By the time I got my camera it was already in the woods.

 

[bigred]

Funny.. I live in downtown Fredericksburg. Here's our paper from two days ago:

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/062008/06242008/389859

 

[Leslie]

Speaking of bears.....

Not too far from Barefoot there in Cawood, KY, over in Wise Co. Virginia, there's a new power plant about to be built. There was a public hearing prior to the air board issuing a permit for it. Most locals are for it, but a large contingent from northeastern Virginia came down to protest the building of a power plant that uses coal.

One of the protesters was a teacher, whose husband also came along. The husband got up to speak, and made the statement that....

the coal companies are rounding up the black bears for slaughter.....

WTF!!!!!

There are FAR more bears now up in the coalfields than there has been in a VERY long time. I agree Musky, the hunting pressure is totally changed, but a large factor is that a lot of older strip jobs opened up area and created edge, and a lot of the open areas were reclaimed with autumn olive.... it's not uncommon to find them smashed down, where the bears will sit on them to eat the fruit... WV, KY, VA, PA, all have a large increase in bear counts associated with surface mining....

Autumn olive is a bad word now, it's not used anymore, but there's a LOT of it out there already.

 

[bmn1965]

I think that is you mike that was in you mother- in-law's stash of Reese's cups!

 

[UK 4X4]

I'm in the oil field and last winter we did a job in Parachute CO,
the local hills and valley's are covered in rigs, the local BLM land is leased to the oil companies....who restrict hunting......no weapons in the field......so they have some pretty cool bears running around now
nicely protected from hunters....bear proof bins....etc etc..

However waking up and seeing one leaning on your hood after a 15 min nap is still a shock.....engine running...he obviously liked the heat.....

no camera...would have made an excellent shot

 

[apg]

Is that bear wearing a tracking collar? Sure looks like it in the photo....