As I was coming home from work Friday & had gotten about 3 miles from KFC, all of a sudden a very large black bear broke out of the bush. It tore across the road & disappeared into the driveway of a hunt camp. There had been two 55 gallon metal drums in the drive to keep out trespassers, but one of them was knocked over. This is not a good time of year to come face to face with a black bear because they’ve just come out of hibernation & are really hungry!
About 10 years ago I had met the previous owner of the property where the bear had exited. There is a house on that property. I was working in a tourism - related office at the Casino at the time. I was required to take some training courses at offices in the corporate headquarters building about a mile away and was able to take the shuttle service back & forth. Since most of the time I was the only passenger on the shuttle, I usually ended up in a conversation with the driver. We found out that we both lived on Sugar Island but unlike me, he didn’t like it at all. He also said that he put his home & property up for sale & couldn’t wait to move. He told me that they had loved the location when they first moved in. He said that he & his wife moved up here from downstate somewhere when he retired. He had gotten a part time job as a shuttle driver for the Casino to supplement his retirement.
Apparently the first year went without incident & both he & his wife spent lots of time outdoors. It was around that time that he said three different very large black bear started showing up on the property. He told me that he didn’t know if the bears were there when they moved in & just kept away for the first year or they just wandered in. And it didn’t take very long for those bears to get aggressive. Several times he said that he had to call in late to work because one of them would be wandering around outside his house & by his car, so that he couldn’t get out. He told me of quite a few encounters that he & his wife had with them. He eventually called the DNR for help. They have, I think 5 bear traps but at that time they were all in use. They did advise him to try shooting a gun off just to scare them away. The problem with that plan was that neither the guy’s wife, nor he had ever shot a gun, much less owned one! And they had absolutely no plans to learn! They had even called 911 several times, but the bears would just scatter & disappear in the bush while the police were there - just to reappear after they left.
He said that they finally had to move into a motel in town after the last night among the bears. He told me that they were awakened at about 3 or 4 AM to a very loud racket outside. When he went downstairs to investigate, he found all 3 bears outside - literally trying to get inside the house. He said he couldn’t figure out why they didn’t try to get in through the windows, because they could have done so very easily. And although they did stand up to look in the windows, they didn’t so much as touch them. Instead, they focused on trying to get in through the doors. To make matters worse, the wind was blowing really hard & took out the electricity so that they had no phone or lights. They spent one terrifying night trying to fend off those bears. In the morning, he moved his wife into town & he took a friend with him to move their belongings into storage. I’m pretty sure they’ve moved back downstate by now. But, seeing that bear the other day at a dead run coming from the direction of that house…I’m just wondering if the new owners do have a gun or two & just might have put one to use to scare him off.
We’ve had our own problems with black bears on our road. I started out with a can of pepper spray that MPK bought for me. He also taught me to shoot & I’ve had lots of practice as well as having a healthy fear of guns…so much so, that I tend to be overly cautious. Luckily, so far I’ve only had to shoot to either down a deer for our venison or some destructive critter that’s playing havoc with the buildings, gardens, or elsewhere on the property.
A couple of years ago we had a bear terrorizing the folks on our road. Our next door neighbors had their daughter & 2 young grandsons over on a Sunday in the early summer. John had burgers on the grill out on their deck. They had all been outside, including their big black dog which was a cross between a German Shepherd & a wolf. (Believe me, I played with that dog & made the mistake of getting my hand in her mouth & seeing her “FANGS” clamp down!) They all went inside to get cleaned up for supper. Their daughter, Mary told us that she happened to glance out the door & saw something big & black out of the corner of her eye by the bar-be-que grill. Thinking that it was the dog & somebody forgot to bring her in, she called her name. Do you see where I’m going with this? Yup! The dog’s name was “Bear”! Mary told us that after she called Bear, she turned & saw that the dog, Bear was already inside. And when she turned & looked out the door again, she saw that there was a real black bear on their deck checking out what was on the grill! She said that she was so shocked that all she could do was holler “Bear! Bear! Bear!”.
The neighbors did manage to scare off the bear. But I guess that the bear kinda figured that he might just get lucky & get invited to come inside to share a burger or two. Because he kept coming back up on their deck, John also called the DNR & was told that all of their traps were out. But they did give him two (I guess you’d call them) bullets. They told him that they wouldn’t kill the bear. But when they made contact with it, they would make a very loud noise. John told us that by the time he finally got the ammo from the DNR…one of the neighbors had already seen it swimming across the river to Squirrel Island.
Do ya suppose that since Squirrel Island is a Canadian Island, they might think about approaching the bear to determine if it had a valid passport, birth certificate or driver‘s license?
Somehow, I think that with all the added “Homeland Security” on our borders…they might take exceptions to the many critters that have successfully managed to breach all international laws, checkpoints, borders, etc..
That is a comforting thought. To my Canadian friends, I say…Sorry, enjoy your summer at the cottage & good luck!
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