We have another bear cruising around our village. Open trash cans and broken bird feeders are sure signs - that and the photo of him raiding our neighbors trash. I haven't seen the little bugger yet, but if I do I'll post a photo. Tom
Poor guy.. he's probably hungry. You'd hate me as a neighbor, I'd go find a good place for him to hang out OUTSIDE of town and start feeding him. What is good bear food anyway? Fish?
I think you are joking. But you do know (I hope) that once a bear learns to associate people with food, or becomes accustomed to people food, it will make such a nuisance of itself (and possibly injure or kill someone in the encounters it will seek out for food) that they'll end up killing it. No matter that you feed him outside of town. He'd smell you on the food, and know that people are a source of food. He'd then search out people. Bear attacks are much less common in places where good garbage management is practiced and bears have zero access to human food. It just takes one access site for a bear to learn that where there are people there is food. Bears are very smart and they learn very quickly. I think you are joking. But there are people who do that sort of thing, and the result is injury or death for people, followed by death for the bear.
In all seriousness, what Daniel has described is such a problem in the Tahoe area that they are considering adopting an ordinance that requires keeping your trash in a "bear box". Ordinance
Bears eat almost anything. Around here they like fish, honey, berries, fruits, birdseed, and garbage. Birdseed and garbage cause the most trouble, as they are common around human dwellings. I'm sure this bear is hungry. He's a little fellow, probably only about 250 pounds. I suspect he hasn't been away from mother for very long. Tom
Yes, I'm aware of why it's not wise to feed wild animals. Where I live, my little rental house backs up to a small slew that has been deemed city property and left to go wild. We get Coons and other critters from time to time in the backyard, they come up to eat the fruit off the trees. It's my position that frankly, they were here first and our sprawl continues to take away their space. The bear would not be roaming looking for food if we hadn't taken away his resources. My dog was attacked earlier this year and left injured by something from our little slew. I fixed him up and am more observant when he goes exploring. I'm very careful to not let the kids go exploring without an escort, but I am unwilling to try to stop the critters... I just feel sad about the whole thing. they have a right to live too and if there was a way I could make things right for Toms bear, I would.
Of course you should not try to stop the animals. But you also should not put food out for them. Anything growing wild is their natural resource. A bowl of supermarket food is not.
There's a book, The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek, which describes an incident at Banff, Alberta, involving several maulings by a garbage-fed bear. Sadly, it took these maulings to get the locals to adopt bear-proof garbage containers.
More wildlife to report: the salmon are running in the stream in our back yard. My wife and I were out watching them, and a cute little red fox walked up on the opposite side of the stream, maybe ten feet away. It's been a good week for animal watching. One of my other friends brought in a photo today of his bee hives. The new bear did a job on them. Tom
