When Bears come calling
What do you do, when a bear raids your yard? As bear populations increase, and human
sprawl takes more of their territory, more and more people will face this
question. How you answer it may be
critical to your future health and well being.
Bears are not generally aggressive toward humans, but they
will defend their cubs and their food.
Many human-bear encounters happen in yards when bears are eating human
food. An eating bear is a dangerous
bear, if disturbed. Keep that in mind.
In this image you can see a large black bear has knocked one
of our feeders out of its tree. Big as
it is, this bear can climb incredibly well, and he’s able to knock down feeders
even 7-8-10 feet off the ground.
In this next image, he’s looking at me as I interrupt his
feeding. As you can see, he’s none to happy with my appearance.
A bear raids the feeder |
What should a homeowner know, when this happens in his yard? Either do nothing, or make noise from a safe
location.
You should know that a bear can move way faster than a human. If he wanted to, this bear could move fifty
feet in little more than two seconds. If
a bear decides to attack, you won’t have much time to prepare.
Consequently, it’s not wise to walk outside to threaten
him. In this photo, I am safely above
the bear, on a second floor deck.
We have a bear bell and wind chimes here at Chez
Robison. A moment after this photo was
taken, my wife Maripat rang them both.
The bear looked annoyed, and retreated to the edge of the woods. However, he came back and returned to the
feeder. She rang them again. With a look of disgust, he walked off.
The Bear Bell |
It was, to my mind, a good encounter. Non one got hurt, and feeder was
undamaged. The brace it hung on . . .
that’s another matter.
The bear departs |
This bear wasn’t too hungry.
A hungrier bear might not have given up.
What then? At our house, the
backup for the bear bell is a Winchester .44 repeater. However, I would not shoot a bear simply
because he was raiding the feeders.
After all, we put the food out there for the animals (more specifically,
the birds.) How should he know he’s not
included?
If you have to chase a bear away, I suggest you make a lot
of noise from a safe place, or drive a car in his direction. Do not walk toward
him, even banging pots and pans. You
might not like his response. Even if you
have a gun, things can go bad quickly.
When I was 25, and shot handguns in competition, I could nail a bear
like this with five shots in two seconds.
Today, at 55, I’d do well to hit him at all. Best to leave the guns as a last resort.
That said, I will say some bears are remarkably gun
savvy. One time many years ago I awoke
at dawn to the sound of dogs barking. As
soon as I cracked the front door the dogs scrambled inside. Alerted, I picked up my 30-06 rifle and
opened it again. A hundred feet down the
drive a large bear looked back at me. As
I watched, he began walking toward the house.
I stepped out, and raised the gun.
He stopped. We stood there, watching
one another. After a moment, he started
toward the house, slower. I leveled the
gun to shoot, and he stopped again. Now
I kept him dead in my sights.
He looked back at me, and I at him. Slowly, he turned and walked away. A few
minutes later, with the woods quiet, I went back inside. That
bear, I thought, knows his weapons. He never came back.
Good luck!
John
Comments
I knew I was downwind, and that his eyesight was SUPPOSED to be poor. So I crept closer, and whistled so he'd look up.
He squinted, I got the shot (a crappy one because I had no telephoto), and he ambled away.
My mates though I was crazy. Maybe I was.
We don't have a bear bell. We are definitely going to have to look into getting one...