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Coming home at dusk tonight I saw the first live black bear here in Wisconsin. It was large for a black bear and didn’t have cubs so I’m guessing it was a male. I’ve seen two dead bears on the highways.

We're not supposed to have black bears where we live but twice now I've had bears take down my bird feeders.
The first one the DNR finally shot as a nuisance but the second they haven't found yet.
I took the feeder down.

After I left patrol, I spent a little over a year at fish and game in dispatch before moving to State Police. We took a lot of bear calls. In many cases, bird feeders, dog food outside, or trash cans... Put the homes on the bears regular rotations. The replies from the citizens were priceless:

"Birdfeeder... BIRDfeeder. I didn't put it out there for HIM."

"I tried the loud music, I tried banging pots together, he just won't leave the porch."
(Game Warden) "Take him the phone, I'll talk to him."
You could actually hear her start across the kitchen to the back door...
"Oh... You're funny."

Elderly female:
"I've tried everything, music, pots and pans..."
Warden:
"It's a longshot, but you wouldn't have a paintball gun would you?"
Grandma:
"Actually, my grandson keeps his here. They live in town so he comes here and we shoot it in the back yard."
Warden:
"Shoot the bear with it, it will sting a bit, but won't injure him. He'll leave."
Grandma:
"What color should I use, the boy has them all."
Warden, without missing a beat:
"Pink, definitely, it will embarrass him with his friends."

Back in Woodinville I lived a quarter mile from Bear Creek and saw or heard bear several times a summer. Most residents knew to not have bird feeders but the most attractive thing was barbecues.

Bears have been spotted near my area on occasion. My step sons friend had a bear on his game camera. He lives 5 or six miles from me.

About 1100 Black Bears live in CT, now, and residents are aware of their presence.

My brother lives in the Northwest corner of the state where bears and cubs regularly pass through his backyard. They have never been aggressive or disruptive, but my bro and sil never leave the house without first scanning the area.

Several farmers and others have petitioned the legislature to allow hunting, but it is still currently illegal. Nuisance bears are euthanized by the State, but it is rare.

There have been several bear sightings in my small town during the last few years, but I have only ever seen bear scat in my yard. It would be a delight to see the actual bear! I don't put out birdfeeders, though many of my neighbors still do.

CT State DEEP wrote:If you see a black bear in your yard, enjoy the sighting from a distance and report your sighting. However, be sure you are not doing anything to attract the bear to your yard. Attempt to scare the bear off by making noise, such as banging pots and pans, shouting or using an air horn or whistle. Once the bear has left the area, take a close look at your yard for potential bear food sources, such as birdfeeders, pet food, dirty barbecue grills, open compost, or trash, and REMOVE those food sources IMMEDIATELY. Bears have incredible long-term memory and will revisit places where they have found food, even months or years later. Bears that are frequently fed, either intentionally or unintentionally through birdfeeders or garbage, may become habituated and lose their fear of people. If a bear behaves in a way that is a threat to public safety, it may have to be euthanized by the department.

We see one every year. Our neighborhood has always had a black bear or two and sometimes we give them names. Currently, a young male named Pincushion has been raiding garbage cans when we put out garbage for pickup on Wednesday nights. A couple weeks, ago, I just sprayed the garbage and the bin with bear spray and he's no longer raiding.

By the way, he got his name about two years, ago. He was still pretty young and decided to chomp down on a porcupine. Not good. A neighbor called the DNR and they came out and tranquilized him and removed all the quills. The DNR folks named him "Pincushion." As male black bears go, he's pretty calm and non-threatening. He's still a bear, though, so we all observe the basics of safely living with bears.

We've had some scat, but not seen the bear(s). We do have and seen Bobcat.

They usually trail thru my range property in June but due to the early warmer weather this year they might be running around now. Going there tomorrow for grass cutting.
I follow Patrick's channel a lot with his family of visitors! https://youtu.be/hUWlRhBl14A?si=J-syooZBz23es6-y

When we bought our farm in Virginia, it was in an Area called Bear Creek as well. The house was finished, sorta. The front steps were just wooden, and not yet attached, the side porch was a block foundation, brick faced, filled with sand. It was waiting for the concrete top to be poured. We hadn't had the roof added yet. The Acre yard had been seeded and covered with straw but not come in yet and the trees taken down had been pushed around the perimeter of the acre lot. I had ONE day to move Miss T and the kids in and was back to patrol, we were in the busy season and that was all the time I could get off.

Tina took a break from unpacking, and slipped out to the "Beach" to smoke a quick cigarette. She didn't smoke in the house and was trying to quit. She called that sand filled box of a side porch the beach for a month until they poured the deck. Sitting there, she heard a strange grunting. "Uh Uh Uh... Uh Uh Uh."

At first she thought I had snuck back to mess with her, and was teasing, but as she looked around in the faint light of dusk, she saw a monster bear, standing beside the pile of downed trees at the back of the cleared lot, rubbing his back on the end of one of the big logs... scratching an itch. Must have felt good to get just the spot... "Uh Uh Uh."

She said, "We have ten acres, You can have 9.9 of them." Inside, she called the Game Warden.

"Is a a big fellow?"
"Yes"
"Gray hairs down his back"
"Yes"
"He's just making his rounds and checking out the new neighbors."
"Really?"
"Yeah, don't leave anything out for him, and he won't add you to his stops. Do you have dogs?"
"Yes..."
"Don't leave filled dog food out, he likes it. He won't intentionally HURT the dogs, he just kinda swipes them aside most of the time, but some of them don't survive the swipe, he is a BIG boy."
"I might just have to shoot him."
"NO, you don't want to do that, unless you can PROVE HE WAS ATTACKING."
"What?"
"Without proof it"s a $10,000 fine."
"Great."
"Welcome to Bear Creek."

We learned from the Warden that the bears mark their territory by standing as tall as they can and scratching the bark off a tree, then "MARKING" the bottom of the tree. The next bear comes along and smells where the first bear marked the bottom of the tree, stands up and tries to reach higher over the scratches. If it can, it scratches around the tree and marks the bottom of the tree by spraying over the first bear's mark. If not, it leaves the area.

Back in the day, our middle daughter found this tree in the woods beside the driveway. It's a tree where bears played the marking game. She couldn't reach the scratches so she didn't mark the bottom of the tree, and left the area.

I didn't know that and will be checking out the trees along my trails down at the range! However little Buster will leave his mark on the bottom of it!

In case you are wondering, this picture is so old that this daughter, has a daughter that age now that just graduated and moved out. LOL.

Wow, you're that old?

Oh wait, I'm close to that too.........

I thought dinosaurs were extinct.

daytime dave wrote: ↑

Thu May 22, 2025 12:07 pm

Wow, you're that old?

Oh wait, I'm close to that too.........

I feel even older, my time in the Corps counts double.
We have four kids, seven grandkids, and my oldest son is in his early 40s... Yup, old...
They issued Solid Green Sateen Utilities in boot camp when I went thru.

Old! Who said old? I have 5 children that I raised, Grandkids, I don't even know anymore, but I have
5 Great Grandchildren.
Trouble is they're spread all over the country.

So there are some dinosaurs still roaming around.

I'm pushing 85.