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Bear.......

WebSlave

WebSlave

It is what it is, but certainly not what it was.
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Was cleaning out a bunch of pics taken by my game cameras and saw this one taken out at the driveway....

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And I thought we were just trying to keep deer and rabbits out of the fruit trees....
 
Casey, it's always the wrong time of year to be messing with feeding bears, lol! Awesome photo! My parents are going to be investing in some bottle rockets and rubber bullets though, we have two bears that came down into our small backyard in New York and they were not afraid of people or of our big rottweiler mix. So, we're going to have to "educate" the bears that hanging out by people probably isn't a good idea.
 
Heeeee's baaaaack!

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Connie found the bird feeders wrecked and two of the three poles bent over. So I checked the game cameras, and sure enough, our buddy is back. I'm surprised he didn't tear up the compost bin we have out near the garage.

I guess if he keeps on tearing up stuff I'm going to have to call animal control (or whatever it is around here) about him. But honestly, I think he's just passing through, and isn't really hanging around here. Apparently he walked on through here back in January, but didn't disturb anything that time.

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To give you some idea of the size of this critter....

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Bears are pretty common here too. We have to spray our garbage with ammonia to keep them from tearing it apart. One time a bear walked right through our front yard while one of the cats was laying on the walkway. They both just looked at each other but didn't seem to care about the other one.
 
We have a large Black Bear that lives in our area. He goes through our yards damn near everynight & while he no longer dumps our trash (we have to bungee cord them shut), he's just destroying our fences. One section of our fence in the 'back 40' is beoyd repair from his constaintly climbing over it, the two neighbors closest to us also have ruined sections & you can see the exact path to takes. We had to section off the area & build another fence to keep our dogs secured in our yard, otherwise they would be able to hop the fence like he does. Unfortunately no many times my neighbors & I have called Fish & Game, they haven't done anything. Well, that's not entirely true, they did give all the house on the right side of the main road (over a mile away) got the special 'bear proof' trash cans. They didn't give them to us in the area where he does all the damage, or the left side of the road. I guess bears don't go left? I'm not sure what their reasoning was, but one of the houses that received the new trash cans is a friend & didn't even know there was a bear in our area. It makes no sense, but I'm not the type to do anything to hurt him, he has been annoying, but he doesn't bother my dogs (indoor dogs, but go out whenever they want) so he's just begun to be a part of the neighborhood. Similar to the wild turkey, guinea fowl & one legged peacock that travel through the yards in our neighborhood...
 
Wow, is there a way to edit that last post? I don't know what happened there, but my mind must have slipped or I was auto-corrected from hell. Sorry guys, I should have proof read it before I hit the submit button.
 
AGoodwin said:
Bears are pretty common here too. We have to spray our garbage with ammonia to keep them from tearing it apart. One time a bear walked right through our front yard while one of the cats was laying on the walkway. They both just looked at each other but didn't seem to care about the other one.
Click to expand...

Same, there are some bears in my area but they seem to be more interested in garbage and "junk food" than people's pets, which is a good thing. Still not keen on having mama bears around though, those things are MEAN!
I'm glad black bears aren't as violent as grizzlies or browns, all you gotta do is chase em off with loud noises and non-lethal rounds and they tend to leave you alone, lol.
 
I know I cant be the only person who comes from the city & wasn't lucky enough to grow up spotting these critters anywhere besides a zoo. When I first moved to where I am now my wife would get so mad, catching me walk around 3:00am. I used to ask her did you here that & she would reply she heard nothing which was my point. In the city your used to hearing the cars, drunks, etc & if you dont it means you have an issue. I actually mad the mistake of trying to chase away a very large raccoon like it was a stray dog or cat... It didn't work like I planned but can say I'm happy it wasn't the big fella you have wondering around..
 
He's baaaack!

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That pic was taken 1:00 am Saturday morning. It seemed like his cycle to make his rounds was getting shorter. Well, it's gotten a LOT shorter. I heard the driveway alarm about 1:30am this morning (Monday), so I had a hunch it was the bear. I scrounged up the night vision goggles I have laying around here and went out onto the front porch. Sure enough I saw him ambling across the yard headed for the bird feeders next to the house. I could hear him before I saw him, as he certainly wasn't trying to be very stealth like. And he IS pretty darn big. Made me a little nervous just standing out on the porch in my jammies. I'm not even sure having my .357Sig in my hand would have been any more comforting, neither.

I went into the bed room and woke Connie up, armed with an air horn to try to scare him away via the window looking out over the bird feeders, but I guess all the racket I made opening up the window was enough to chase him away. I put up a water based varmint deterrent earlier today that I've used in the past to keep deer away from the fruit trees to cover the bird feeder near the garage, so I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning whether that helped to protect that feeder from him. He might have just eaten it. :eek: And I coincidentally placed an order for an electric fence charger today, along with wire and other items, figuring I'll wire up the bird feeders and zap him to convince him that he needs to stop coming around here and wrecking the feeders. I'm guessing that when the fruit trees start bearing fruit he'll have a field day then, so I want to get him out of here before then.
 
Several non-lethal ammo choices will square the bear towards other endeavors
2-3 rounds will definitly time stamp its memory
 
Metachrosis said:
Several non-lethal ammo choices will square the bear towards other endeavors
2-3 rounds will definitly time stamp its memory
Click to expand...

Yeah, that sounds good in theory, but if it pisses off the bear and I then have 400 to 600 pounds of pissed off bear charging at me while I'm standing there holding a "bear-pisser-offer" instead of a gun packed with real ammo, well, that could just ruin my day.

I think I'll try the electric fence thing. The one I am getting is supposed to pack quite a wallop, so maybe it will re-educate the bear about where he needs to NOT be looking for a meal.
 
Not really a theory,Park Rangers use them(12ga rounds) all over the US
I have the Fiocchi 12ga 2-3/4 batons and they are pretty intense inside 20m.
I move 2K lb Bulls with them on the hunting lease :D

I have two of these units that are still running strong after 4+yrs
Anything over 1 joule packs a nasty sting and works well at cutting weeds :)
http://parmak.com/product_details.php?PId=6
 
WebSlave said:
Yeah, that sounds good in theory, but if it pisses off the bear and I then have 400 to 600 pounds of pissed off bear charging at me while I'm standing there holding a "bear-pisser-offer" instead of a gun packed with real ammo, well, that could just ruin my day.
Click to expand...

Sissy... ;)

I pissed off a rather large feral pig once when I was a kid in Orlando. Hit him with high powered pellet gun. Damn things are fast!
 
Well, we got a real good look at the bear this evening. Connie and I were watching a movie and we heard the alarm go off that I had set out facing the bird feeders. This was around 9:50PM. I wasn't going to check, as the last couple of nights around the same time the alarm went off and nothing was out there. But Connie jumped up to look, so what the heck. So when I got to a window in the bedroom and turned the flashlight on towards the bird feeder, I saw something, but for a moment I wasn't sure what the heck I was looking at. There was SOMETHING at the feeder but for an instant I just couldn't make out what it was.

It was the bear. I mean, it was the BEAR! It was sitting on the other side of the bird feeder so apparently he didn't see me walk up to the window. The flashlight was shining right on his belly and all I could make out was just some dark shape there. A BIG, WIDE dark shape. When I realized it was the bear, I was a bit taken back by his size. He was SITTING on the ground eating out of the bird feeder with NO problem. I'll have to measure that tomorrow to see how far off the ground it is. Here I was thinking the bear had to bend down the pole the feeders were on because he couldn't reach it very well. Heck, NOT a problem for him...... :eek: He probably didn't even notice bending that iron pole at all.

Anyway, I had to put down the flashlight to open the window, since it takes two hands, as I wanted to grab the airhorn I had sitting there to scare away any varmints. So after I made the blast and looked again, he was gone. Connie was at the other window in the bedroom and said he ran off at the blast, so at least he is leery of human contact.

Man, I was thinking that black bears really didn't get all that big, so this was QUITE a surprise seeing one REAL close up. Now I'm thinking I'm REAL glad he just didn't get pissed at the airhorn blast, because all that was between him and me was a piece of screen in the window. Heck, I don't think even the side of the house would be much of a barrier if he really wanted to get IN. I saw what he (or one like him) did to the side of our shed a while back.
 
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