Black bears have always fascinated me. I like to watch them. I enjoy their antics. There is something about looking around and here comes a big bear strolling through the woods. He is so black and so pretty in that fur coat. For a minute you don’t believe what you are seeing. It’s a bear! I just like them.
Having said that, I have been in on the demise of a lot of black bears. Conservation Officers, game wardens, Natural Resources Police Officers, or whatever you call them in your state often get calls on problem bears. In West Virginia the Wildlife Division of DNR does a lot of work on setting culvert traps (like a big box trap) for nuisance bears. There were times over the years that the only recourse that I had for a bear problem was hot lead.
Now folks I know that some of you out there do not like to hear about a problem animal being put down, and I respect that. The truth is, live trapping and moving most (I said most) nuisance bears does not work. Once the animal gets used to living out of dumpsters and finding goodies on your back porch, he is not going back to living in the wilderness. If you got a taste for Domino’s pizza scraps would you go back to eating acorns and poke berries?
Some would say that these problems are man-made and not the bears fault. I would agree, but I am just relating that the Officer on the scene usually just has to deal with the situation, and he has to think about public safety first. I do not want to blow the chance of bear attacks out of proportion, but there have been some around the country in the past few years. The stark truth is that a bear is a large predator, and sometimes predators do what predators do.
There are times that we will see a lot of bears in populated areas, usually when there is a mast failure (lack of natural food). If this happens, the bear complaints go through the roof. I mean like you could get a dozen calls about bears in a day. Then you have the public safety issue to consider. If a citizen told me that a bear was in his yard growling and popping his teeth, I figured that bear was not long for this world. I have shot, snared and trapped them around dumpsters, swimming pools, apartment complexes, Mexican restaurants, day care centers, and hospitals. I have been witness to more than one bear getting inside someone’s home.
Once upon a time a particularly nasty male bear entered a residence by means of forcible entry. As usual he picked an elderly lady, undoubtedly the nicest grandmother type in the neighborhood. It was always amazing to me how a bear would choose not to break into the house of a local hunter with four rifles propped up in every corner. This bear smashed out a window and proceeded to make a mess of a very tidy home. As he entered the living room, there in the hallway sat an unopened five gallon container of herbicide. As bears often do, this one tested the container by biting through the plastic and then flinging it aside.
All four of those big canines punctured the bucket, so five gallons of the foul substance drained out on the floor, onto her new carpet. The lady of the house, hearing the noise, came down the stairs and bumped into the bear as he was destroying the kitchen. The bear growled and popped his teeth; the lady exclaimed a loud “O!!” and fell backwards onto the stairs. This could have gotten really ugly, but thankfully it did not. The bear ran through the house, broke out another window, and went his merry way. We tried to catch this bear, even attempted to run him with hounds, but I never heard from him again. Just as well.
The Black Bear is a wonderful animal, and we seem to have a healthy population all over the country. I would say respect this animal, hunt them in season, and enjoy watching them when it is not, DO NOT feed them, and we will bears around for a long time.
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