Living with Bears

In another thread, about carrying guns on a homestead, I mentioned bears. Wanting to reply to a resulting post, I realized that what I wanted to discuss wasn't specifically about guns so, not wanting to take the other thread off topic, I thought I'd start another here. People tend to have strong feelings about bears, even those who have never seen one, and there are reasonable arguments that can be made in all directions on the subject, so let's have at it. Doing a forum search, I can see that a fairly lively discussion has already taken place here on bears in compost piles but, since I wanted to talk about more than compost piles, I decided to start a new topic.

First, I am not an expert on the subject, don't claim to be, and haven't even played one on TV; however, I did grow up in bear country and currently have a hundred acres of land in northern Maine that I share with at least four individual black bears, some of whom only visit during mating season. I don't think that I am naive when it comes to bears, and sometimes even carry a gun while walking on my land, yet I have no reasonable expectation of ever having to use it, and just as often I don't carry a gun when walking on my land.

I have never actually seen any of the bears on my land in Maine, because bears prefer it that way, but I have trail cameras set up that I move to various parts of the property, and hardly a day goes by that at least one bear doesn't show up on camera. In fact, I have a theory that one particular bear has made a game out of finding my camera because even when I moved it into a small clearing in the middle of a cedar swamp on the far end of the property, he was there within a few days. Since black bears on camera often look very very much alike, I may have had more than four individual bears.

From homesteaders and others who live in or on the edge of bear country, I often get the feeling that the very presence of a bear is seen as a threat and an imposition, and many will voice opinions reminiscent of early views of Native Americans, that the only good bear is a dead bear.

I grew up on a small farm on the edge of bear country, and spent a great deal of time in the woods, and have never viewed bears as a threat, at least no more than I would dogs or other people. In fact, far more people are killed each year by dogs and other people than by bears. I grew up in the UP of Michigan, where there were bears in the woods on the far side of our pasture, yet only once did we see one outside of the woods, and that was a young black bear that we watched running across the pasture, crossing the road and our neighbor's pasture, the into the woods on the other side. Generally, bears that have not been acclimated to people will go way out of their way to avoid being seen. We always had a couple of dogs, so there was never any evidence of bears coming into our yard or around the barns and outbuildings. Yet there was plenty of evidence of them in the woods. If we were to see a bear in the woods, it would be a fleeting glimpse of a bear's butt retreating into the bushes.

As children, we camped out in the woods all the time, without parents or adults with us, and neither we or our parents ever show any fear of harm coming to us from marauding bears. My cousins and I spent two full weeks in a teepee sort of structure that we had built ourselves out of native materials. Of course, there were always some scary moments, hearing the noises of animals scuffling about outside of our tent at night, but these villains of the night were as likely to have been raccoons than bears.

Recently, I did some research into the numbers of people killed by black bears in North America. I don't have the statistics in front of me right now, but most of these fatal attacks were committed by caged bears or bears that people had turned into pets, followed closely by attacks occurring in national parks or other unnatural environments, where bears have become acclimated to viewing people as sources of food. Third, but way behind the other two, were that of bears in places that had only recently been settled by people, where there were more bears than the natural environment could support.

Maine had only one recorded fatality caused by a black bear, which is the only kind of bear we have here, and that was a bear that had been kept in a cage at a gas station in, I think it was in the 1930s. The gas station owner, and keeper of the bear, had gone into the cage with the bear for some reason, and was attacked and killed. Going back as far as 1900, there were no recorded deaths caused by black bears in the wild in Maine, and very few attacks. Our black flies probably pose more of a threat than our black bears.

The dangers presented by black bears are nevertheless real and are, to some extent, probably regional in nature. Black bears in Maine, with its vast woodlands and forests, have little need to rummage through people's trash cans at night, or to enter homes looking for food.

Bears are nearly always in search of food. Over the spring, summer and fall, a black bear will put on a huge amount of weight, in preparation for winter. Rather than being major predators of deer or livestock, black bears rarely hunt and kill animals larger than rabbits or rodents. When bear are found feeding on a deer or on someone's cow, the greater likelihood is that the animal died of something else before the bear came along. Eighty-five to ninety percent of a black bear's diet consists of vegetable and plant matter, and a large percentage of its meat is in the form of insects, caterpillars, grubs and other crawly things.

The above refers to a black bear's preference. However, black bears are highly adaptable. When its environment is changed, whether by human encroachment or other destruction of the forests and woodlands in which it lives, then the bear will look elsewhere for food. One of the places it might look is in your backyard. A dog will generally be enough to keep a bear away, and I've seen video of large bears being chased away by little ankle-biting dogs. Otherwise, if the bear comes into your backyard, it will usually be at night. If it finds food in a trashcan that you have left outside, it is going to get into that trashcan, and it will remember your backyard as being a source of food. Other attractants include birdfeeders, food stored in accessible outbuildings, dog food bowls left outside while the dog is taken in at night, or chickens and other kinds of poultry. A very hungry bear might look to larger animals as prey, but generally any animal larger than the bear will be safe from harm.

People who live in the city take precautions to protect their stuff. At the very least, they lock their doors and their windows, and they don't leave their keys in their car. People may go beyond that, to hire security companies, installing burglar alarms, and maybe carrying their wallet in their front pocket rather than their back left pocket, where thieves may expect to find it. We warn our children to look both ways before crossing the street, and not to talk to strangers.

Yet, when they move to the country, they think that they don't have to worry anymore about anyone taking their stuff. That's not true. Not only are there dishonest people in the country as well, but you need to concern yourself with the raccoons, skunks, bears and other critters who may be lurking about in the night, or even in the daytime, looking for your stuff. Take similar precautions. Don't put food wastes in trash cans or bags outdoors or in easily accessible porches and outbuildings. Take your birdfeeder in at night, or make sure that it's not accessible by bears. Birdseed is very high in the calories that bears need and are looking for, and they will be strongly attracted to it. If you have a dog, don't yell at it to shut up at night because it's probably busy doing its job, as annoying as it might be at three o'clock in the morning.

Don't feed the bears, whether intentionally or accidentally, and they are not likely to be a nuisance. Feed the bears, and you can expect to find more of them. If you remember reading about the marks that hobos would put on people's fences indicating whether or not they were a soft touch, it's a little like that, I think. Bears will remember the places where they have found food in the past, and they will come back. If you don't find food, you may still have a bear coming in to investigate from time to time, but you won't have repeat visits.

In my research, I have read some accounts of people whose homes or camps had been broken into by bears, some even resulting in attacks. At least two of these people had been feeding the bears, because they enjoyed seeing the bears in their yard. Once you have a bear in your yard, the animal can smell any food that you might have out in your house and, although it would certainly be unusual, the bear might decide that it's worth the effort to go in and get some. Campers are wisely told not to keep food in their tent. If you are living in bear country, it's a good idea not to leave food lying around in your house either, such as on your table or on a window sill. Of course, the first step would be not to attract them into your yard to begin with.

When you are in the city, do you leave your wallet lying on the seat of your car where anyone walking by can see it? Of course not, because that might tempt someone to break into your car and take it. It's the same principle, only bears can smell a lot better than they can see, so you want to keep the smells down.

My experience is restricted to black bears. While I have done some reading on brown bears, grizzlies and polar bears, I don't know a lot about them. Of course, you should feel free to discuss them here as well, if you wish. There are more similarities than there are differences.

The most dangerous black bear is one that has been acclimated to people, and which has come to view people as sources of food. These would be the ones who can be found in national parks or other unnatural habitats. These might also include those that have become accustomed to being fed by people, whether intentionally or through carelessness.

The next most dangerous black bear is one that resides so far into the wilderness that it has no experience with people at all. Such a bear might view a person as being the 150-pound weakling that he is, and could potentially view the person as being food.

Then, of course, there are the aberrancies. It is not the norm for people to molest, rape, murder or cannibalize people, yet there are people who do these things. The same may be true of a bear. For reasons that may make sense only to the bear, some bears might just simply be dangerous. With such bears, there is probably a story behind whatever it is that they are, as there is with people who exhibit aberrant behavior, but that story doesn't matter to you if you are being attacked. This is outside of the norm, but it can occur. Nevertheless, just as most of us don't walk around in cities and towns with an unreasonable fear of people, we shouldn't have an unreasonable fear of bears while we are in the forest. Caution and respect are in order, but not fear.

Good information.

Two other points I will bring up: Bees, and women.

Bees: Bears love protein rich bees. Contrary to urban myths, bears are not particularly fond of honey. It is the bees that they are after. A hungry bear will demolish any hive it comes across to get those yummy bees.

Women: Any woman in her period should stay out of the woods. Most Grizzly attacks, if investigated, involve a woman in her period. A bear's keen sense of smell can detect it at a great distance, and he will come to investigate.

When confronted by something approaching along a trail or through the woods, a bear will generally run. But often, it will then circle back to see what it was that it had run from. So that a bear that I might catch a glimpse of scurrying into the bushes might be secretly watching me from the bushes later on. I saw a photograph once, that was taken by someone who was taking pictures of scenery in the forest. Only after he developed the film did he notice that a bear was there, barely visible, but watching him from the brush line.

Changing subjects slightly, I don't hunt and my property is posted, not because I object to hunting but because I enjoy the photos and video that are captured by my wildlife cameras. However, well meaning people are making big mistakes when they lobby to ban bear hunting, except in places where their numbers are actually very low. One of the reasons that bears retain an otherwise unwarranted respect for human beings is that they have come to associate us with bad things, such as guns and death. I don't know how much of it bears understand, but they have a fear of people that isn't justified by our comparative size, strength or agility. Bears who reside entirely within national parks or in parts of the country where bear hunting has been banned for a few generations of bears will come to lose that respect, and correspondingly become more dangerous to us.

I worried about the bear that I have most commonly seen on my wildlife camera photos and video because, for a period of about a month during bear hunting season last year, he hadn't appeared. Learning the four bears had been shot just beyond our property lines, I thought he might have been one of them, so I can understand and empathize with the sentiments that lead to calls to ban the hunting of bears, but it is not an appropriate action.

I am sixty years old, overweight, and I fall down sometimes just walking through the woods. Except for the fear of being hunted, bears have no reason to fear me. Yet they do, and I think I'd like to keep it that way.

Oh, I should mention that the bear that I was concerned about showed up again about a week after hunting season ended. Apparently, he was just hiding out for the duration. I've had this property for less than two years and prior to my posting it last year, it was hunted.

we have a lot of black bear here in Michigan..and we have them around from time to time..but as you said..no more annoying than a dog..actually less annoying than the stray or let loose dogs in the area.

the bear will poop and eat and occasionall trash something..but the dogs dig and destroy and are miserable when they aren't properly controlled.

I actually encourage our bear..although I don't "feed them" food I do plant food plants that they are welcome to eat, and in the apple season they clean up the ones the deer don't get that smash on the ground when they fall or are bruised or damaged..which often is a lot of apples.

love that they clean em up as it keeps the hornets off of my walking places (however occasionally step in the bear poop)..

Mostly around here they'll eat the droppepd fruit and occasionally steal a bird feeder we forgot to allow to go unfilled..and maybe get into a garbage can, but that never was ours, just a neighbors.

They have never attempted to enter the house or mess with us.

I think if you are KNOWN to them, your voice, your smell, and your habits..you will get along fine with a bear...however you don't want to go quietly stumbling upon them..

I'm fairly noisy when I'm out and about..but not overly..I'm just large and clumsy..and genearlly walk heavy..so they know I'm around..i don't often carry a gun with me..occasionally a cell phone..but not even often that..unless I'm walking a distance..

only time I ever was frightened was when I was 2 miles away from the house and one was growling from a swamp..grunting really..and I was concerned it might have babies..so I went to a neighbors and asked for a ride home..that was many years ago.

Brenda Groth wrote:we have a lot of black bear here in Michigan..and we have them around from time to time..but as you said..no more annoying than a dog..actually less annoying than the stray or let loose dogs in the area.

I grew up in the UP. I lived on a farm and never saw bears there, or evidence that they came around, although they were in the woods that began at the edge of the field. If there's a bad wild crop, they can be expected to look elsewhere for food, and that may be someone's backyard, if they can find food there. I am also planting perennials with the understanding that I'll be sharing with the bears and other creatures.

Brenda Groth wrote:I'm fairly noisy when I'm out and about..but not overly..I'm just large and clumsy..and generally walk heavy..so they know I'm around..i don't often carry a gun with me..occasionally a cell phone..but not even often that..unless I'm walking a distance.

I don't have cellular coverage when I'm in the woods, although there are some clearings that I can get a signal in. I don't generally make a point of being loud in the woods, but a bear would have to be deaf not to know I'm coming before I could ever see him. The only exception is the cedar swamp. the ground there is mossy and all but clear of underbrush so walking through the cedar swamp doesn't create a lot of noise. When I think of it, sometimes I'll talk to myself or hum while I'm walking through that part of the property so as not to stumble upon a sleeping bear, although I still doubt that it's necessary.

As mentioned, I go out without a gun about as often as I carry one, but whenever I come across bear scat that is still soft, I start imagining things, so if I know that I'm going to be walking well off the road I'll sometimes bring a gun. Truly though, bears that are really interested in attacking someone do so without warning, so it's unlikely the gun would do me any good. Still it eases my mind some.

We have 36 acres of mostly woods, 2 acres with garden and fruit trees and chickens. On our game cameras we have captured several bears including a sow with cubs which we watched grow up through game camera pictures. Never any problems in 25 years until last year. Then a bear broke into the chicken area and ate all the feed while bashing the feeders to smitherines. We knew it was a bear because of the tracks and the fact that apparently 100lbs of laying pellets causes terrible intestinal problems for bears. It turns out one of the cubs, recently set off on his own by his mother, just didn't have any fear of people. Folks kept running into him in odd places and he was even huffing and behaving badly and scarily when he did creep up on people and they faced him. Our way of dealing with him was 1) put up woven electric fence around the chickens with a solar charger, and 2) arm all the neighbors with rubber buckshot and pepper spray. Our goal was to make this bear fear people! We caught him trying to get the birds and shocking himself, when we ran at him shouting and he turned to run --- pow, right in the butt with the buckshot. No harm to him but a lesson. Another neighbor had a very close encounter and ran through the same drill. That seemed to do the trick, the only other sighting since then he turned and ran as fast as his fat little feet could go. We have never had problems with any other adult bears even though there are a lot of them around here. I sure hope it stays that way.

That sounds like a good way to handle it.

Marsha, We set up a charger that is 9.3 Joules, this will stop a bear. If this bear is hanging around someone is going to get hurt or killed as he gets larger. Bears run from people be cause they know humans can make that big noise. When a bear follows a hicker for days and gets closer and closer. If the hicker can't make that big noise, with a gun, he begans to give the bear his food. When he runs out of food he is in trouble. People are killed and eaten every year and there is little reporting. We want to like bear, We, people, think they are cute and like the wooden chainsaw carvings of them.

This bear will first eat domestic animals, get into trash cans, than houses it's only a mater of time.

This week, on the other side of the lake, the police euthanized a bear that was breaking into houses. There is a lady up in arms wanting the police to be brought to justice. Fact is they may have saved this lady's life.

Let me add: Two years ago a black bear killed two of our doe, we got the bear, but he had us in our house for 10 days, not able to let the kids out, not able to leave. I spent nights in the overhead of the barn but he just strumed the fence and kept out of site. He knew I could make the big noise, I had parted his hair the second night with a 308, the sheriff had come, they shot bean bags at him, he just kept out of range and followed them back, keeping just out of range. He's a good bear now.

Please keep us posted as to this bear.

I'm about to build a shack and Chicken coop about 100' from where a Bear has been scratching the bark off of saplings to mark it's territory. The scratches are along a path that leads from a ridge to the swamp, probably used when in the area and the Bear feels like a drink (or some Frogs, if he's lucky).

This'll be fun, eh? From this thread I have decided that there will be NO food around the shack (or Chicken coop, other than Chicken food). On problem with that is that Chickens and Bears eat a lot of the same things. So if I start doing permaculture with the idea to feed my Chickens... will the Bear hang around? Probably not.

My guess is that the Bear will slowly stop coming around. The Dogs and the electric fence that I'll use to nudge the trail farther away will probably help. The Bears' scratches on the trees and the Cougar tracks... perfect place for Chickens. (I'm such an idiot

I'm relatively new to bear country (4 years), and I live close to an area where the DEP chooses to relocate nussince black bears from urban areas all over the state. I've had plenty of close encounters around the house and on deep forest hikes... Bears in the woods (while more intimidating at first glance) prefer to stay away from people, where city Bears tend to have no fear of people.

Being in a state with strong anti-gun laws I've taken to keeping an airhorn/bear pepper spray foggers around the house and that I take with me out on hikes...

In the woods I've needed to draw the pepper spray a few times but never needed to use it on a bear... When I've stumbled into a mother bear with several cubs on a hike, there is usually a few second stand off where neither the bear or you move... I find that having at least some kind of weapon on me helps me make the right decisions that help avoid a conflict.

The first time I saw a bear I turned my back only to have it start to charge at me... when I stood my ground it backed off.... From this experience I learned that posture and attitude is VERY important, and that young city males tend to be foolishly aggressive.

I don't partake but I support the bear hunt, although I think the hunters should ONLY be allowed to take a bear INSIDE city limits... I doubt they would ever allow that due to safety concerns, but I think that the bears would adapt to that kind of hunt by avoiding population centers.

After several years without a hunt the bear population had exploded around here... I was having close encounters weekly... Now that the hunt has resumed I don't have "encounters", I just occasionally see a bear leaving the area after noticing me.

I've really come to enjoy sharing the mountain with the bears, and I think not feeling vulnerable to a bear attack is a large contributor to that enjoyment. The forestry folks at a nearby state park do have done a lot to planting berry bush's and nut trees to provide the bears with more natural foraging opportunities, and that's a very permaculture approach to coexistence as well.

--Multi-Mode

Ken Anderson wrote:In another thread, about carrying guns on a homestead, I mentioned bears. Wanting to reply to a resulting post, I realized that what I wanted to discuss wasn't specifically about guns so, not wanting to take the other thread off topic, I thought I'd start another here. People tend to have strong feelings about bears, even those who have never seen one, and there are reasonable arguments that can be made in all directions on the subject, so let's have at it. Doing a forum search, I can see that a fairly lively discussion has already taken place here on bears in compost piles but, since I wanted to talk about more than compost piles, I decided to start a new topic.

First, I am not an expert on the subject, don't claim to be, and haven't even played one on TV; however, I did grow up in bear country and currently have a hundred acres of land in northern Maine that I share with at least four individual black bears, some of whom only visit during mating season. I don't think that I am naive when it comes to bears, and sometimes even carry a gun while walking on my land, yet I have no reasonable expectation of ever having to use it, and just as often I don't carry a gun when walking on my land.

I have never actually seen any of the bears on my land in Maine, because bears prefer it that way, but I have trail cameras set up that I move to various parts of the property, and hardly a day goes by that at least one bear doesn't show up on camera. In fact, I have a theory that one particular bear has made a game out of finding my camera because even when I moved it into a small clearing in the middle of a cedar swamp on the far end of the property, he was there within a few days. Since black bears on camera often look very very much alike, I may have had more than four individual bears.

From homesteaders and others who live in or on the edge of bear country, I often get the feeling that the very presence of a bear is seen as a threat and an imposition, and many will voice opinions reminiscent of early views of Native American, that the only good bear is a dead bear.

I grew up on a small farm on the edge of bear country, and spent a great deal of time in the woods, and have never viewed bears as a threat, at least no more than I would dogs or other people. In fact, far more people are killed each year by dogs and other people than by bears. I grew up in the UP of Michigan, where there were bears in the woods on the far side of our pasture, yet only once did we see one outside of the woods, and that was a young black bear that we watched running across the pasture, crossing the road and our neighbor's pasture, the into the woods on the other side. Generally, bears that have not been acclimated to people will go way out of their way to avoid being seen. We always had a couple of dogs, so there was never any evidence of bears coming into our yard or around the barns and outbuildings. Yet there was plenty of evidence of them in the woods. If we were to see a bear in the woods, it would be a fleeting glimpse of a bear's butt retreating into the bushes.

As children, we camped out in the woods all the time, without parents or adults with us, and neither we or our parents ever show any fear of harm coming to us from marauding bears. My cousins and I spent two full weeks in a teepee sort of structure that we had built ourselves out of native materials. Of course, there were always some scary moments, hearing the noises of animals scuffling about outside of our tent at night, but these villains of the night were as likely to have been raccoons than bears.

Recently, I did some research into the numbers of people killed by black bears in North America. I don't have the statistics in front of me right now, but most of these fatal attacks were committed by caged bears or bears that people had turned into pets, followed closely by attacks occurring in national parks or other unnatural environments, where bears have become acclimated to viewing people as sources of food. Third, but way behind the other two, were that of bears in places that had only recently been settled by people, where there were more bears than the natural environment could support.

Maine had only one recorded fatality caused by a black bear, which is the only kind of bear we have here, and that was a bear that had been kept in a cage at a gas station in, I think it was in the 1930s. The gas station owner, and keeper of the bear, had gone into the cage with the bear for some reason, and was attacked and killed. Going back as far as 1900, there were no recorded deaths caused by black bears in the wild in Maine, and very few attacks. Our black flies probably pose more of a threat than our black bears.

The dangers presented by black bears are nevertheless real and are, to some extent, probably regional in nature. Black bears in Maine, with its vast woodlands and forests, have little need to rummage through people's trash cans at night, or to enter homes looking for food.

Bears are nearly always in search of food. Over the spring, summer and fall, a black bear will put on a huge amount of weight, in preparation for winter. Rather than being major predators of deer or livestock, black bears rarely hunt and kill animals larger than rabbits or rodents. When bear are found feeding on a deer or on someone's cow, the greater likelihood is that the animal died of something else before the bear came along. Eighty-five to ninety percent of a black bear's diet consists of vegetable and plant matter, and a large percentage of its meat is in the form of insects, caterpillars, grubs and other crawly things.

The above refers to a black bear's preference. However, black bears are highly adaptable. When its environment is changed, whether by human encroachment or other destruction of the forests and woodlands in which it lives, then the bear will look elsewhere for food. One of the places it might look is in your backyard. A dog will generally be enough to keep a bear away, and I've seen video of large bears being chased away by little ankle-biting dogs. Otherwise, if the bear comes into your backyard, it will usually be at night. If it finds food in a trashcan that you have left outside, it is going to get into that trashcan, and it will remember your backyard as being a source of food. Other attractants include birdfeeders, food stored in accessible outbuildings, dog food bowls left outside while the dog is taken in at night, or chickens and other kinds of poultry. A very hungry bear might look to larger animals as prey, but generally any animal larger than the bear will be safe from harm.

People who live in the city take precautions to protect their stuff. At the very least, they lock their doors and their windows, and they don't leave their keys in their car. People may go beyond that, to hire security companies, installing burglar alarms, and maybe carrying their wallet in their front pocket rather than their back left pocket, where thieves may expect to find it. We warn our children to look both ways before crossing the street, and not to talk to strangers.

Yet, when they move to the country, they think that they don't have to worry anymore about anyone taking their stuff. That's not true. Not only are there dishonest people in the country as well, but you need to concern yourself with the raccoons, skunks, bears and other critters who may be lurking about in the night, or even in the daytime, looking for your stuff. Take similar precautions. Don't put food wastes in trash cans or bags outdoors or in easily accessible porches and outbuildings. Take your birdfeeder in at night, or make sure that it's not accessible by bears. Birdseed is very high in the calories that bears need and are looking for, and they will be strongly attracted to it. If you have a dog, don't yell at it to shut up at night because it's probably busy doing its job, as annoying as it might be at three o'clock in the morning.

Don't feed the bears, whether intentionally or accidentally, and they are not likely to be a nuisance. Feed the bears, and you can expect to find more of them. If you remember reading about the marks that hobos would put on people's fences indicating whether or not they were a soft touch, it's a little like that, I think. Bears will remember the places where they have found food in the past, and they will come back. If you don't find food, you may still have a bear coming in to investigate from time to time, but you won't have repeat visits.

In my research, I have read some accounts of people whose homes or camps had been broken into by bears, some even resulting in attacks. At least two of these people had been feeding the bears, because they enjoyed seeing the bears in their yard. Once you have a bear in your yard, the animal can smell any food that you might have out in your house and, although it would certainly be unusual, the bear might decide that it's worth the effort to go in and get some. Campers are wisely told not to keep food in their tent. If you are living in bear country, it's a good idea not to leave food lying around in your house either, such as on your table or on a window sill. Of course, the first step would be not to attract them into your yard to begin with.

When you are in the city, do you leave your wallet lying on the seat of your car where anyone walking by can see it? Of course not, because that might tempt someone to break into your car and take it. It's the same principle, only bears can smell a lot better than they can see, so you want to keep the smells down.

My experience is restricted to black bears. While I have done some reading on brown bears, grizzlies and polar bears, I don't know a lot about them. Of course, you should feel free to discuss them here as well, if you wish. There are more similarities than there are differences.

The most dangerous black bear is one that has been acclimated to people, and which has come to view people as sources of food. These would be the ones who can be found in national parks or other unnatural habitats. These might also include those that have become accustomed to being fed by people, whether intentionally or through carelessness.

The next most dangerous black bear is one that resides so far into the wilderness that it has no experience with people at all. Such a bear might view a person as being the 150-pound weakling that he is, and could potentially view the person as being food.

Then, of course, there are the aberrancies. It is not the norm for people to molest, rape, murder or cannibalize people, yet there are people who do these things. The same may be true of a bear. For reasons that may make sense only to the bear, some bears might just simply be dangerous. With such bears, there is probably a story behind whatever it is that they are, as there is with people who exhibit aberrant behavior, but that story doesn't matter to you if you are being attacked. This is outside of the norm, but it can occur. Nevertheless, just as most of us don't walk around in cities and towns with an unreasonable fear of people, we shouldn't have an unreasonable fear of bears while we are in the forest. Caution and respect are in order, but not fear.

May I ask, where have you heard or read that Native Americans are "anti-bear"?

I've had 2 instances over the past 7 years where black bears have come running across my property, which lays between 2 mountain ranges and have stopped to eat my choke cherries and take swipes at my dogs before continuing on. We are very Bear Aware as this is both black bear and grizzly country; none of us venture outside without a dog, whether during the day or at night, to alert us to other wildlife. We also have elk, wolves, coyotes, deer, pronghorn antelope the occasional moose on the property during various times of the year.

I forgot to mention, we have several cans of bear spray but have never had to use it, thankfully. On the other hand, I know of not even one hunter that doesn't carry a .44 into grizzly country, whether they're hunting or hiking. I don't believe a can of bear spray could stop a griz.

Rene, I don't mean to speak for Ken but I think he's referring to what some of the old fashion views ABOUT Native Americans were - some people used to say "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" - I think that's what he's referring to. Not that Native Americans thought "the only good bear is a dead bear".

Yes, that was my understanding. I can almost hear John Wayne saying it. I have a Native Canadian helper who says it regularly when he's angry with relatives. He enjoys seeing the shocked looks on the faces of our mostly white customers.
He also enjoys really playing up his faint accent. He calls it playing "Tonto",the Lone Ranger's buddy. Martin has an excellent vocabulary, but when he's in character, he employs mostly gestures, grunts and a form of pidgin English seldom heard outside of 1950s westerns.

I've heard that statisticly, the most dangerous bears are females with cubs.

Dale Hodgins wrote:Native Canadian

Some of us prefer "pre-Canadian".

Rene Bagwell wrote:I don't believe a can of bear spray could stop a griz.

At first glance I would have assumed that too... I did a lot of research before deciding to carry the spray... The two facts that sold me was the rubber meets the road statistics on people trying to take down a bear in a high stress situation and failing to do anything but provoke the attack half of the time. The other thing that sold me on was reading (in a PDF I couldn't find quickly on Google) that forest rangers are now required to carry the spray in grizzly country in addition to their firearm because of its proven stopping power.

So far not overacting and moving slow has been enough to escape any encounters I've had (including encounters with Mothers + Cubs)... I'll be sure to update this thread on the effectiveness if I ever need to use the spray. I carry it for piece of mind, it helps me stay relaxed and make smarter choices.

Further Reading:
http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/bear%20spray.pdf

"The question is not one of marksmanship or clear thinking in the face of a growling bear, for even a skilled
marksman with steady nerves may have a slim chance of deterring a bear attack with a gun. Law
enforcement agents for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have experience that supports this reality --
based on their investigations of human-bear encounters since 1992, persons encountering grizzlies and
defending themselves with firearms suffer injury about 50% of the time. During the same period, persons
defending themselves with pepper spray escaped injury most of the time, and those that were injured
experienced shorter duration attacks and less severe injuries"

Its only natural to fear/respect Bear's but that fear is not always very rational. The still make me nervous but Bears are welcome around here and have done an amazing job spreading seeded grapes/choke cherries all over this mountain...

(These were taken last summer from my backyard)

David Bates wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:Native Canadian

Some of us prefer "pre-Canadian".

Martin was born 39 years ago and is thus too young to be a pre-Canadian. He refers to himself as a Native Canadian and refers to "pale skins" as immigrant Canadians.

I'm not sure where the bears stand on this issue.

There is a town called Haliburton North-West of here that is "cottage country". What that means is that thousands of people from Toronto drive up there every Summer weekend, stay in their cottages on the waterfront and, at some point, drive over to the dump to get rid of their trash and "watch the Bears". Watching the Bears at the dump was a favourite passtime in Haliburton, if you were invited to a cottage there it was sure to be on the agenda.

A couple of years ago the city council decided that the Bears at the dump were becoming a problem. I suppose they thought that there were too many and that sooner or later there was going to be a Bear/human interaction resulting in a chewed up cottager. So they built a Bear proof fence around the dump. What happened was pretty predictable. All of these starving Bears headed out in a circle and became a huge problem for the cottagers. Spreading trash, going through screen doors and terrifying weekend wilderness lovers. They say that the Bears are still a big problem in Haliburton. I'm not so sure it's the Bears.

(p.s. I'm going to go with Native Haliburtian)

It's an old thread, but I wanted to update it with some information about this:

Any woman in her period should stay out of the woods. Most Grizzly attacks, if investigated, involve a woman in her period. A bear's keen sense of smell can detect it at a great distance, and he will come to investigate.

For what it's worth, the National Park Service says that's not so. NPS is not my favorite federal agency, but:

Menstruating women do not attract bear attacks: study busts the myth that women should avoid camping trips while menstruating, and sheds new light on sexist stereotypes in the process.

From the link:

Menstrual odors do not attract bear attacks, according to a paper by the National Park Service.

...

According to researcher Kerry A. Gunther, who wrote the paper: "There is no evidence that grizzly and black bears are overly attracted to menstrual odors more than any other odor."

The paper also traced the origin of the myth to a single evening on Aug. 13, 1967, when two women were killed by grizzly bears in Glacier National Park. The events caused speculation at the time that the attacks may have been prompted by menstrual odors. Presumably, as years passed without any investigation, the speculation eventually morphed into belief — and, unfortunately, unjustified fears.

...

The NPS paper gleaned its conclusions from separate studies performed on grizzly bears, black bears and polar bears. For grizzly bears, hundreds of attacks on humans were analyzed, finding no link between menstruation and the attacks. Such a link was also debunked regarding black bears, after a 1991 study recorded the responses of 26 free-ranging black bears to used tampons collected from 26 different women. Not a single instance of a black bear being attracted to the tampons was observed.

I'm glad people decided to test the old wive's tale.

Elisha Gray wrote:The two facts that sold me was the rubber meets the road statistics on people trying to take down a bear in a high stress situation and failing to do anything but provoke the attack half of the time.  
...

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/bear%20spray.pdf

"The question is not one of marksmanship or clear thinking in the face of a growling bear, for even a skilled
marksman with steady nerves may have a slim chance of deterring a bear attack with a gun. Law
enforcement agents for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have experience that supports this reality --
based on their investigations of human-bear encounters since 1992, persons encountering grizzlies and
defending themselves with firearms suffer injury about 50% of the time. During the same period, persons
defending themselves with pepper spray escaped injury most of the time, and those that were injured
experienced shorter duration attacks and less severe injuries"

Its only natural to fear/respect Bear's but that fear is not always very rational.  The still make me nervous but Bears are welcome around here and have done an amazing job spreading seeded grapes/choke cherries all over this mountain...

(These were taken last summer from my backyard)

The link is dead, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the caliber of the weapon and the fire rate.

Sure with brutal skill and a bit luck you can kill a grizzly with a 0.22 LR :
https://www.ammoland.com/2017/06/bella-twin-the-22-used-to-take-the-1953-world-record-grizzly-and-more/

But in my amateur non-hunter opinion i would prefer a (semi)automatic rifle chambered with at least .308 Winchester.

The 9mm pistols people usually have cannot even penetrate the skull of a brown bear when you don't hit
a particular weak spot, but i found a list of successfull applications of handguns:
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/02/defense-against-bears-with-pistols-97-success-rate-37-incidents-by-caliber/

However in the above list also cases where the bear was wounded and ran away were counted as success.

Here is a profound article on the topic, the author also concludes that BIG rifles are your way to go:
https://www.outdoorlife.com/experts-guide-staying-alive-grizzly-bear-country/

Just another thought:
Brown bear, Kodiak and Grizzly are all the samee species Ursus arctos. (Some argue that also polar bear is the same species)
Here in europe we have killed the bears that came in contact with humans for thousands of years,
so only the shy individuals survived.

So the best "defense" against a bear is to announce yourself,
even wearing a bell is advised.

In MN my wife nailed a black bear in the nose with a baseball bat as it was climbing in the kitchen window.

We've lived in our yurt for 6 years now and we've routinely had black bears pass through, occasionally trying to get in (or on) the yurt. Once they realize we are home and our dogs bark, they leave. We recently started using trail cams to see what might be going on when we're not looking. It seems statistically likely that we probably have at least ten unnoticed visits to every one that we are aware of. This would suggest 50-100 bear traverses of our property per season. We take precautions to avoid feeding the bears, and since our first few visits/lessons, I think we've succeeded in being of no interest to them. Mostly, they visit at night when we and our dogs are inside and sleeping but we have had a number of sightings (within 100ft) during daytime when we are active outside. Usually these sightings are the classic "back side as they leave" type.

Am I naive to think that we can coexist with the bears?

No, you are not naive at all. Your experience and the trail cams prove that, IMO.

They know where you are, they generally avoid you, and you are already successfully co-existing with them.

I would invest in some airhorns so that IF they get pushy, you can set off a blast. I also would continue to be scrupulous in ensuring they are NEVER rewarded with food. Late summer and fall would be when you are most at risk, and perhaps in spring when they first emerge.

You may want to clearly claim "your" territory by "marking" the zone with human urine; both on the ground and on tree trunks (up to 10 feet high).  Encircling an area around the yurt in electric fencing would be something to consider - they commonly do this in Grizzly and Polar Bear country with very good success.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:  Encircling an area around the yurt in electric fencing would be something to consider

When we first started having bears clawing at the canvas, I installed strips of plastic with drywall screws pointing out along the top perimeter of the wall. We had one bear touch the wall after that, and based on the paw prints, I think they got a polite warning from the screws. After that, it seems as though word got out and we've had no trouble since.

I cannot figure out why this bear keeps returning to our place. We've picked it up on our cameras multiple times over the past few days and as far as I can see, he's not succeeding in finding any food here. He may have pulled an empty fertilizer bag out of a bucket, and sniffed an empty plastic tray that previously held apple peels. He walked around the yurt, and sniffed around the porch door, so maybe he's casing the joint in preparation for a future burglary?

Edit** After walking around and looking for prints, it appears this was a mother and her cub.

My guess is he was successful at some point in the past.  ...or maybe a parent was.   I have seen animals pass on history.  Maybe 20 years ago I backed my car over a dog who was sleeping under it. No harm done, but it terrified the dog.... and me.   It is 3 generations later and no dog of ours will sleep under a vehicle.

John F Dean wrote:My guess is he was successful at some point in the past.  ...or maybe a parent was.   I have seen animals pass on history.  Maybe 20 years ago I backed my car over a dog who was sleeping under it. No harm done, but it terrified the dog.... and me.   It is 3 generations later and no dog of ours will sleep under a vehicle.

We moved onto this land 7 years ago and it was vacant forest prior to that. In our first year, before we were living here, we had a couple of composters that got tipped over and plundered. Since then, the only "food" they've gotten has been a jug of hydraulic fluid and a soccer ball (the bear bit into and deflated it).

I totally agree with you about the wisdom passed down among generations of animals. We have a lot to learn about their behaviour.

When you live among bears, it's a good idea to learn about their body language. We had a bear hanging around early this spring looking for food. It had obviously been fed by humans in the past, and wasn't terribly worried about us.

A friend was over when it showed up one time. It was heading towards the house, so I went out and told it off. It moved away a bit, sat down, yawned, and stared off into the distance. My friend thought this was the bear settling in, getting ready to attack us or something when we went outside. Those are actually all things a bear does to show deference. It was acting in a submissive way by moving to a distance and sitting down, and it was trying to show me that it was minding its own business by yawning and looking away. I still wouldn't have turned my back on it or anything, but, as I expected, it left the yard after what it considered an appropriate period of nonchalance.

After a few days of being unfriendly and making sure it didn't find any food, the bear moved on to somewhere with more to eat and we haven't seen it since. My friend told me they would have phoned the CO right away, which probably would have resulted in a dead bear.

Thank you, that's very helpful information. We've only seen bears a handful of times (other than trail camera) and they've never been on the approach, just snooping around as they pass through.

What I consider to be great news, a bear sighting has been verified in the county next to mine.

We have a number of black bears on our property, and the game cam is about the only way to see them.  We have one that I believe is an adult male, and a momma and her two cubs this year.  We have seen one in person once next to the driveway.  Bears generally make themselves scarce if people are around, unless, as mentioned, people have fed them enough that they get acclimated.  Bears will also run from dogs, even very small dogs.  At least around here, they mostly just want to be left alone.  We have had footprints on the glass this year from bears standing and looking in the sliding glass doors, and they knock down the bird feeders to eat from time to time..

I lived around bears while in MN with no real incidents.  Giving it some thought, my wife nailed one in the nose as it was trying to climb in the kitchen window.  She had a rifle and a baseball bat.  She selected the bat.   I had one politely ask me to stop picking his berries. He seemed honest, so I left.  Finally, my dog had a run in with a bear one night. Come morning the yard was full of bear fur. The dog was untouched.

I survived a bear attack when I was 12.  

I am 64 and still live in “ the woods” and have never since been bothered by black bear since.  My revenge has been to chase the little critters on horseback when I saw them on my place and to discourage their loitering with many loud and obnoxious dogs.

We have been visited by bears many, many times in the 6 years we've lived in our yurt. We've never had a problem and we have taken steps to ensure that they don't get any joy from visiting us.
Since June, we've had new neighbours that live about 1000ft away and we've been having regular visits from one bear in particular that is not as afraid of us as I'd like. The new neighbours got some chickens for eggs and modified a rickety shed to be the coop. Attached, they built a rickety pen that is secure from hawks but vulnerable to a strong wind, let alone bears.
Last night, we heard a commotion and went over with our two dogs and a bear banger but we were too late. The bear had entered the coop, eaten from a bin of chicken feed and was about to go at the chickens when the neighbour scared it out of the coop by honking his truck horn. The bear went around to the pen and walked right in, grabbed two chickens in its mouth and ran off into the bush.
It was frustrating and bewildering to hear the neighbour explain all this to us when we had warned him previously that his coop and pen weren't secure. We helped him figure out how to temporarily secure the main coop entrance and he said he would nail a board across the small opening between coop and pen. I left him my bear banger and a box of cartridges and we went home for the night. A few hours later, we hear more honking and a blast from the banger. The bear had come back and squeezed through the little door opening that the neighbour had not bothered to nail shut. Luckily, the birds stayed up out of reach long enough for the bear banger to scare the bear away.
These neighbours are not poor or unintelligent, so there is no reason why they can't properly protect these birds. They seem truly upset, but can't seem to figure out the risks and vulnerabilities before the unfortunate things happen. Then they get mad at the bear.

Micheal: sadly more proof that intellect and common sense are often mutually exclusive...

Here those that attract bears in such a manner are subject to fines from the wildlife arm of the government. Although this is not "intentionally feeding the bears", here they would get a stern talking to, and still, possibly fined. Perhaps this is the only way to keep the neighborhood AND bear safe.