To answer the question…No, it is not. We had a large, but not extra large, bear that came up on our deck tonight at about 9 p.m. We chased it away by yelling and clanging pot lids together. Then, I called the Lefferts next door, and lo and behold, the bear appeared near their back door…much to the thrill of their dinner guests!

Bill Dunn maintains the bears won’t go to sleep until the first snow, and it seems as if he’s correct.

Hope this information is helpful to you.

Janet

We received a message from Kathy and Gary Lang with photos showing this same bear was at their house (south of us) at lunch time. This is the same bear that Kim Gauvain had photographed eating her garbage.

The main thing is that the bears are out foraging for all kinds of food to pack on the pounds before they go into hibernation. This particular bear doesn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of humans, so it will continue to raid the neighborhood. I reported the sighting to the DEP this morning, but I got the impression they won’t do anything about it unless we file a formal complaint about it.

I will check with our friend at the DEP tomorrow and find out when they consider a bear’s behavior bad enough to do something about it. At least one Milton resident feels that something dangerous might happen if we don’t nip it in the bud. I will let you all know what I find out.

In the meantime, I would suggest no bird feeders, and don’t put your garbage out until the early morning, if possible. Keep garbage cans inside closed garage doors, and don’t leave pet food outdoors. We certainly don’t want to encourage more visits from our hungry black furry friends. They have a right to live in Milton, too, but we just want them to stay in the woods and not in our yards.

Have a good holiday weekend.

Janet

Out lumbers this huge black bear with dirt on it snout and a quizzical smile. Okay, so I made that up. The rest is true.

Like I say, we’re in the tub and suddenly we are presented with options. Stay and watch or beat feet! We elect to stay, for awhile. Neat thought.

The bear comes out onto my maintenance shed apron, chooses to walk the thin line between the shed and the Wisteria that seldom blooms (seen it happen once in 16 years) and boldly walks where who knows how many bears have walked before – unbeknownst to us. This time it’s not unbeknownst.

Holly, a lover of beauty who finds a bear in our yard quite the thrilling thing, says, “Oh how beautiful.” She continues to talk to whoever’s on the other end and shares her conversaton with me and the other party.

Now, this is a big one and amazingly, it gets bigger and bigger as it ambles fearlessly toward us. I had taken the feeders in only minutes before, so it was not to get the meal of birdseed it wanted. It crossed my mind that these black bears are herbiverous. I was checking to see what kind of a plant it might think I am, when Holly reported that it was now altogether too close (about 30 feet and closing) and option number two might be a wise plan.

I stood up ( I know, it looked ridiculous). The bear stopped and when Holly also stood, it apparently thought we’d ganged up on it, and happily, it beat feet.

Somehow we didn’t mind that it plowed through our northwest garden and was gone.

I had mentioned to Janet recently that I hoped people who are plagued with bears (or at least sight them) would call the State and report the sighting.

In my view they are beautiful creatures, but they are becoming too numerous and I refuse to think of a 400 pound anything as CUTE!

Anyone out there have a plan? Your blog comments are welcome.

Dick and Holly

This particular one was not afraid of people and sat across the street and ate our garbage for at least 40 minutes. My sister Gayleen and her husband Leigh Pont arrived on their bikes and they watched him from our yard for another 10 minutes. As they rode away, they saw a second bear walking up the Watson’s driveway. I saw one of them again this morning at 8:00 as I was leaving for work.

Kim

We’ve taken our feeders in for several days.  Each time I put them back I diligently take them down at night for a few days, then decide she’s lost interest, leave them up – and back she comes.  I hate to quit feeding the birds but may have to.  Much as we enjoy living with wildlife I know it is not healthy for them to become habituated to humans or comfortable in residentiall areas.

Susan Eanes
12 Headquarters Road

It’s happened again. Quite spectacular, really. Less than forty minutes ago, at 9:00 a.m. straight up (too much in daylight for my money), this big black bear came running up our side lawn while we were having coffee on the deck. Beautiful creature, pretty young, I think, but 350-400 pounds if he was an ounce.

I told Holly to run for the camera and our speed was rewarded. I got several shots, but one is really good. If I can figure out how to send a picture to the Milton site, I’ll show it. I have to go over Chris’s directions on how to do that, again.

We called the State and they took a report for a sighting. We did not take our feeders in, since the noise of our fascination with the animal while we were on the deck probably scared the critter off.

We were amazed at how fast that big animal could lope along and he wasn’t even trying. Couldn’t hope to outrun him if it came to that. Someone (I hope it wasn’t a sidewalk bear expert) told me that if you make a ot of noise it will run. We didn’t have to, today, but the feeders are coming in at night on a regular basis. Hopefully that will be enough.

As an aside: How about some activity from others on the site? This is a neat thing that Chris Majeske Has wrought and we should be using it.

I’ll send the pic if I can set up the program, so all can see.

Dick

Incidentally, the stuff we put on the hostas recently seems to have kept them away. Supposed to be good for thirty days. Been a couple of weeks now.

Dick

Well, if we can discourage them until mid-August without them making too much trouble, I guess they can eat all they want. It’ll save me some later labor.

Within the last week we’ve had two full grown females nibbling in the back yard and yesterday I saw one heading east in front of our place at a near gallop.

Oh, and Flower, our resident skunk, seems to have moved on. He was cute, but the upside is, he didn’t leave any odiferous residue as a going away present.

Dick and Holly