Dealing with a Problem Bear

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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My wife and I live in Black Mountain, North Carolina. We are used to seeing black bear around here and usually have several dozen sightings of them every summer in our yard, on nearby roadsides and elsewhere around the area. I have frequently encountered bear while hiking and this has never been a problem before. They always run off.

This year we started seeing a large sow back in late March, as well as a group of three yearlings. None of these bears were causing a problem for us, though they did not seem particularly concerned about human presence. We’d see one or the other or all four maybe once a week.

In May some bears began breaking into houses about two or three miles from us. Then came the news that a large sow and two yearlings in that area were euthanized after breaking into a home and that a third yearling had escaped capture.

Now here it is the first weeks of June and while we have not seen our sow or the three pal yearlings together, we are seeing one large yearling around our home and neighborhood. This week it has been in our yard on multiple occasions. A couple of days ago it approached my wife and I as we sat on the front porch. The usual raised voice and loud noises did not discourage it. We were forced to go inside. The bear wandered behind our house and I took a picture of it from the deck behind our home, which is at least eight feet up.

It lumbered through harmlessly yesterday afternoon and I saw it again this very early morning after first hearing it rummaging through a neighbor’s recycling. The bear walked up into the woods. Gone for the day, or so I hoped.

At around 10:30 this morning after a shower I walked downstairs from our uppermost floor, turned towards the sliding glass doors of our deck (at least 8 feet off the ground!) and there was the bear walking/balancing on the railing of the deck and looking in the door. My wife was in the kitchen nearby slicing up a watermelon and had heard nothing. The kitchen has a window not three feet from where I saw the bear. I yelled “bear on the deck!” and my wife and I began hollering for it to go away. The bear did nothing but walk along the deck railing, still looking at us through the windows into the house.

I turned on a blaring radio and finally the bear climbed down the side of the deck, and then down a deck support beam like someone shimmering down a flagpole. It then climbed another neighbor’s fence and went away.

This is alarming. We have tried to be “bearwise”. Last week we removed our high-up daytime-only hummingbird feeders just to be safe. Our back deck door is on the flimsy side.

I do not want to see this bear euthanized. I love wildlife, detest seeing its habitat constantly mowed down for more housing. Yet I do not want this bear in our home.

Thoughts?

2

Seems like its mother lacked a healthy fear of humans and failed to teach it the same. It is a potentially dangerous situation - you, or a neighbor, or a neighbor’s child could accidentally corner it and trigger aggression.

Do they not relocate bears in your state? I’m surprised that they go right to culling them.

3

I bet some thoughtless humans have fed it.

What about air-horns? It would be an annoyance to have to carry it around (though you could tape a cord to it and wear it like a cross-body bag). But it might be worthwhile–I would think the sound of one of those might make an impact on the bear—more so than voices or radio sound.

If it were bothered enough it might stop coming around.

4

I live in bear country in northern NJ and have noticed a similar trend with less fear. I have taken to keeping packs of firecrackers and a lighter near our sliding doors and when one gets too close I’ll light the whole pack and toss it out the slider. It has worked so far.

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[Album] Brar
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WOW.

(I’m impressed by its balance.)

7

Here in Oregon, we have lots of black bears, too. I have them cruising through my property regularly. At this time of year, they’re loading up on whatever food they can find.

A few years ago, I found a lot of scat on my patio areas very close to the home. When I called our local Fish and Game folks, they asked if there was evidence the bear had touched any glass in the windows. There wasn’t. They said based on my response that the bear was not yet habituated and didn’t pose a danger – but to get back in touch if I ever saw paw or nose prints on the glass. They encouraged me to remove every single bit of temptation possible: Clean out the car of any and all foodstuffs or gum, including stray wrappers, remove any perfumes or air fresheners that smelled like food, take down any hummingbird feeders, secure trash where the bears couldn’t get to it. I had already done all those things, and I didn’t see further evidence of bear activity that year around the house.

In addition to telling me to contact them again if the bear(s) touched the house, they rather gleefully advised me I was free to shoot the bear if I deemed it a “nuisance”. I do ok with small game (not a hunter, but sometimes putting down a hurt animal is necessary), but you won’t catch me shooting a slug at a bear.

Unfortunately, what you’ve described is a bear that is already habituated. You’ll never be able to trust the yearling that is already showing this kind of comfort around humans and their homes. You’re right – the behavior is alarming. Great pic, by the way.

@Thumper668 has given you good advice. Scaring the bear off is your best first defense. Do keep a sharp eye around your place, though. It sounds like this bear is particularly enamored of your home. It may well have to be euthanized, I’m sorry to say. :cry:

Good luck.

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It was showing dexterity.

The reports when the bears were euthanized noted that a neighbor had been feeding bears. Apparently there is no fine in this town for doing so.

I went to a town meeting about the “bear problem” a couple of weeks ago. We have a human problem not a bear one. Tourists and some misguided locals being careless with trash or directly feeding bears are the direct cause of the trouble. We concluded with a recommendation for stiff fines. We will see where that goes. In the meantime…

9

It’s a virtual certainty that bear is gonna hurt somebody. And then it’ll be euthanized.

So your choice comes down to ignore the bear until a human is hurt and he bear is killed, or call the authorities every time you see it, in hopes the bear can be relocated rather than euthanized, and in the hope that they grab it before it hurts a human.

And yes, your town needs ordinances about human behavior towards bears: no feeding, secured trash, etc. And it needs education for the residents followed by vigorous enforcement.

And it needs smarter savvier residents. Good luck with that last one.

10

This, exactly. The year I had bears being more familiar with the home was a similar situation: Neighbors who were careless with smelly meat wrappers in their unsecured trash. The bears were getting into any trash cans they could get their paws on. Also grabbing hummingbird feeders no matter where they were situated.

11

We live around several weekly seasonal rentals. Sometimes I think warning tourists has the opposite than desired effect. They want to see a bear, and telling them to not be careless with food tells them instead how to attract a bear. They get their fun story and we are left with the problem when they leave.

I want to see ordinances with teeth. If you own a property you are financially culpable no matter what your guests do.

We have a house directly behind ours that was such a rental. Owned by never-seen out-of-towners. They had a bear can, but in disrepair, and the bears kept pulling out the trash. I called the Town, who directed me to the police who directed me back to the town. Nothing was done.

Last year some new owners bought the place, added a strong bear can, and there have been no new issues at that residence. We just need to get more people to care.

12

We have both a deer problem and a bear problem.

The city sent out a questionnaire about how people felt about handling the deer problem. One of the questions was “If deer needed to be culled, would you feel better about it if the meat went to feed the homeless?” I suggested that maybe the meat could be left outside of the city to attract bears, and keep them away from the houses. I’m not sure how practical that would be, but it’s a thought.

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Sadly, there’s truth behind the saying, “A fed bear is a dead bear.” People who feed bears are short-sighted and stupid.

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We’re in Montana and there apparently isn’t anywhere to relocate bears that isn’t already chock full of them. I have a Taurus Judge in .410 that is the next step up from air horns then pepper spray. Won’t really injure them but it will hurt. But bear spray is our first defense. We also have lots of cats around, and those scare me. Bears not so much.

15

A plus one for this. My MiL’s house abuts the foothills in the west of the city, running up towards Pike’s peak. It’s still a fair bit away from the actual edge of the city, but she’s had black bears she scared off with shouts and a hockey stick.

My FiL has a lot of rifles, but bear spray is a quick, easy, and less complicated solution that’s a big step up from just making more noise, especially when that step isn’t working.

Protect yourself first, and then worry more for the bear. I’m not saying to get a shotgun/rifle at this point, which has plenty of it’s own risks at home, but if you don’t have it already, bear spray ASAP.

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In a lot of places (like NJ) it’s illegal to discharge a firearm within 500 ft of a dwelling (of which there are 3 within that radius for me). If my firecrackers stop scaring them off I also keep a recurve bow with a quiver of blunt rubber small game arrows. They won’t harm the bear, but they’ll sure sting. (Disclaimer: shooting an arrow within 500 ft of a residence is also illegal, but a lot quieter and less likely to be reported). Fortunately, I haven’t had to use that step… Yet. I’m glad, because Step 3 is the 1911, which will almost certainly get me arrested.

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We actually had a very extensive thread on firearms as defense against bears for those who want to research that option:

I personally consider it a last resort with the potential to aggravate the situation, especially when considering pistols.

Since the OP seems to be trying to avoid harming the bear in question though - lots of steps in the middle first, but no argument, it’s a real concern.

18

I’m a backpacker and go out in black bear country in the southern half of WA State. A bit further north there are more aggressive brown bears, and in the Northern Cascades Nat Park, there are grizzlies up near the Canadia border. I stay in the black bear country, have a bear bell on my hiking pole, pack an air horn, and take bear spray. Suburbs of Seattle have black bears.

Just curious to those with a backyard bear problem. Is getting blasted in the face with bear spray an effective way to de-habituate a bear? Or is it a more temporary measure?

19

I haven’t personally used it because it’s expensive and our encounters are frequent and arbitrary. From what I have been told, it doesn’t really do much to a bear who has already been sprayed. Fortunately in NJ those bears are trapped and relocated. Euthanasia is usually only the solution if a bear hurts someone, which is rare.

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When I was a kid (in the 1970s) in rural Pennsylvania, troublesome bears were trapped (in cylindrical traps large enough for the largest bear to comfortably stay - like this one Wildlife Control Supplies: WCS™ Culvert Style Bear Trap with Counter Balance Door (Custom Order)) and transported to even more rustic wilderness. Does that not happen any more?