Bear in My Backyard

[HappyAnika]

Oh don't get me wrong Emily, I have a healthy respect for and fear of bears. Its one thing when they are in a tree lounging and there is a DOW officer standing next to you with a rifle. Quite another to see one hiking or camping. We went to Montana a few years ago into grizzly country. Planned a hike but when we got to the trail you could tell it wasn't used very often. I was nervous the whole time. We had our keys strapped to the outside of our packs and sang the entire time. Then we camped not to far from there and I barely slept the whole night. I've never run into a bear on a trail, but I know it happens around here, I try to be smart about it to be safe.

Hmm, speaking of which, we are going to Montana again this summer for vacation . . . I might pick up a few bells. At least this time we are sleeping in a lodge!

[emily_in_nc]

Oh don't get me wrong Emily, I have a healthy respect for and fear of bears. Its one thing when they are in a tree lounging and there is a DOW officer standing next to you with a rifle.

Oh yes, I will agree with you there! That's about the only way I'd want to see them. My DH is dying to see a bear on one of our hikes, but I truly hope we never do. We've hiked in black bear country in the NC mountains and sang and made noise too....that gets old, though, since a lot of the reason we hike is for the solitude.

Emily

[bmccasland]

Just to make all y'all (and that IS the correct plural of y'all ) comfortable in the woods...

In the 5 years I lived on the hatchery, we had to have three bears trapped and/or shot
- one sub-adult because it was acting confused, walking in circles, was out during the day. Shot and hauled off
- one because it trashed a screen door trying to get into the one house that didn't own dogs or cats. It also trashed some expensive trout solar feeders. Shot at the Girl's Camp just up the road after reaking some havoc there.
- and the third because it wouldn't scare off, and starting trying real hard to get into the feed barn. Trapped and hauled off.

We accepted the fact that we lived in bear country and did adjust our behavior accordingly - keep garbage in until garbage day, don't leave pet food outside. The Apache Tribe (reservation surrounding the hatchery) highly respected bears, so doing anything to them was a BIG Thing. In fact, the trapper was a white guy, just to keep the bad juju from getting on them. The Game Ranger had to do a cleansing ceremony after he killed the obviously sick bear (#1 above).

On the otherhand, I did have fun with tourists that were hiking the trail that went by our houses... I'd see them and shout "look out for the bears..." then check my watch. In about 10 minutes they'd be back - about the time for them to reach the gate in the fence leaving hatchery property and onto the reservation, turn around and come back. While I sat there enjoying my morning coffee. Snicker

[mtbdarby]

Nope, haven't seen them back. They are quiet. If I hadn't seen the shadow passing the window I would have never known they were around. I'll be looking for scatt in the yard (the dogs eat it though - yuck). I have one bird feeder in the front yard close to the house so most likely they wouldn't touch it. The former person who lived here had the feeders in the back away from the house and they used to come in and clean them out. That was almost 3 years ago though.

I'm keeping my eyes peeled either way....