We live at the edge of suburbia, north of Minneapolis. When we moved in, we were told there had been a couple of bear sightings in our little neighborhood.
While making coffee this morning, I looked out the window and saw this . I’m pretty sure we don’t have any squirrels in the area big enough to do that. Fetchund went out to look for other damage and for prints. She found one print, definitely belonging to a bear.
I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t awake to see the bear. The dogs didn’t bother telling us we had an intruder within 30-feet of the house.
The American Black Bear can be pretty quiet, and they aren’t typically aggressive. However, you don’t really want to encourage them to come up to the house or forage nearby; aside from the relatively remote possibility of attack (the vast majority of bear attacks happen because bears become semi-habituated to people and then find themselves too close, and attack defensively from a sense of fear) bears can simply be very destructive.
It’s hard to gauge from a picture, but the print indicates a pretty small bear to me; probably a young bear that is pushed out of mature territory and is finding a decent living foraging at the edge of suburbia. This is an unfortunate byproduct of the resurgence of the black bear population in North America (and the expansion of suburbia); if you see it you probably want to scare it off as much as possible, or call Fish & Game and let them know so they can tag and, if necessary, relocate the bear to prevent habituation.
As much as I’d like to see it, I’m smart enough to know that having it come back isn’t a good thing. The bird feeders will stay empty for a week or two and we’ll keep the garbage in the garage.
Our neighbors have seen bears here in the past, but few and far between. Hopefully, this one is just passing through and we won’t have to do anything about it.
If you want to see and even interact with bears in their natural environment, check out the North American Bear Center’s Black Bear Field Study Course. It’s near Ely, so not too far away from you.
A black bear has been sighted about twenty to twenty-five miles outside of Nashville. It’s the first time that I can ever remember a bear in Middle Tennessee. Given where it has been seen, it has had to cross the interstate at least twice. It has also done quite a bit of damage to someone’s car. And the family cat that slept in the wheel well has disappeared.
