I’ve talked about bears both down here and up on the land before. So far we haven’t had problems with them up on the land. Andy saw a couple in 2020.
This first one was by the side of the road in May when Andy was driving up. Andy stopped to look at it, and the bear sat there and looked back, so Andy drove on. It was still there when Andy was driving home so Andy stopped and took the picture from inside the car. Again, the bear wasn’t fazed. It wasn’t until the next day that the mystery was solved. There was a deer carcass where the bear had been. Presumably the bear had been eating on it and was protecting it. Andy never saw the bear again.
Later in August Andy was walking down our old driveway when a younger bear dashed out of the bushes, ran down the road a bit, then dashed back into some bushes to the left of the road. It had clearly been aware of him and was trying to get away.
The last incident was this past June when Kaitlin, Torben and the pups saw this one on our old driveway:
This one could have been more serious if the pups hadn’t been on leashes and had tried chasing the bear. One never knows.
Anyway, right now there is a bear up there causing problems for our neighbors. It knows how to open car doors to look for food, and it also has been trying to get into houses with people inside them. It isn’t afraid of people or loud noises like firecrackers, so they’ve had to call the Department of Game and Fish, which has brought a trap to try to capture it. Apparently the bear has a tag on its ear, which probably means it had caused problems before so was captured and relocated.
It doesn’t look good for the bear, which is why they say don’t feed bears! That’s why we have bear proof Dempsty Dumpsters in town and why people are told not to leave pet food, bird seed, etc. where bears can get them. It broke my heart a couple of weeks ago to see a closeup picture in our local paper of a young bear on someone’s patio eating from a big bucket of bird seed. I can understand the person’s joy in seeing the bear so close, but he wasn’t doing the bear a favor. Everyone is safer if bears stay afraid of humans instead of thinking of them as sources of high quality food.
July 28, 2023
I just can’t imagine “bear” just “there” – or any other large entity “just there”
But I remember wallabies and kangaroes causing a similar problem in holiday resorts in W.Australia. Don’t leave food out for them
We do have large wild animals but in the main they are in the forest/mountain sector and probably would run away if they even saw a human – boars, various types of deer, feral goats and wild horses.
Thanks! 🙂
It seems you hear about things like this more and more. The more their habitats are destroyed the more they move in closer to where all the humans are. That’s really something that the one there knows how to open car doors and even tries to get into house.
It’s a smart bear! Smart and persistent.
each time I read things like your story I think about how crowded our planet is becoming, and the 8 billion people on it, there are many who have lost common sense. no matter how many times we re told in Florida, do NOT feed the gators, people think it is cute an do it, resulting in the same things as your bears.
Wow! Sometimes it staggers belief.
Wow … trying (and failing) to read the expression on his/her face.
People mean well, I suppose, but that sounds like it’s becoming a real problem. Keep safe!
They’re doing their best here to educate people to coexist with the bears.
You are so right about this, we should never feed dangerous animals or top predators. Gosh, I hope it can be caught and transferred far away!
Fingers crossed.