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Tonight we were watching tv and the dog growled and the wife looked out the door. There was about a 400 lb bear coming up the steps to get on the deck. I slid the door open a little and tried taking a picture but it was to dark. It was only about 10 foot away from me and did not show any fear of me what so ever. We watch it for 15 minute or so before it went back in the woods

sawmill wrote:Tonight we were watching tv and the dog growled and the wife looked out the door. There was about a 400 lb bear coming up the steps to get on the deck. I slid the door open a little and tried taking a picture but it was to dark. It was only about 10 foot away from me and did not show any fear of me what so ever. We watch it for 15 minute or so before it went back in the woods

A high-school friend of my wife's has similar bear issues, but she lives in rural Alaska. And never goes outdoors without a heavy rifle.

Are bears common there? Here in Central Ohio, we are overrun with white-tail deer, but they are dangerous only to my shrubbery.

Oh yea, and to cars and trucks. A colleague of mine was driving back to Columbus from a meeting in Dayton this very afternoon, when a couple of deer decided to make a mad dash across I-70. He sped up to avoid them, and then watched in his rear-view mirror as they tangled with the semi he had just passed. One deer tried to stop, but skidded under the trailer wheels. The other deer never slowed, and literally exploded when the semi hit it. Yuck. The semi lost a fender, maybe more.

They are quite common here. We usually see several a year crossing the front yard but I have never seen on our deck. I am a little concerned about the lack of fear it showed toward me as normanly they run like mad when they see a person

The place I moved from had a lot of black bears, the world record (880 lbs) was shot less than a mile from my house. They were pretty good about being invisible 99% of the time, except for when they wandered in front of trucks.

What I would recommend is that you call your State Department of Natural Resources. Most states have a Bear (or nuisance animal hotline). They should be able to give you advice on what to do or not do in your area.

We have Black Bears here in Maryland (mostly in the western part of the state). But, they do occasionally wander down to the east. I think we even had one wander down from Pennsylvania onto the Eastern Shore last summer. Mostly they are just are nuisance though getting into trash cans, dumpsters, bird feeders, etc. However, Black Bears in different parts of the country can have very different behavioral patterns. Your DNR would be your best source of information.

I friend one year, while we were hunting in Western Maryland, had a bear wander by the spot he was sitting on the ground. The bear decided to have a seat not 5 feet from his spot and stare for a while. My friend reached over and snapped a twig off of a bush; the bear got up and decided to continue on his merry way down through the woods. No problems at all. They learn to adapt well around people. But, there are also accounts of Black Bears being very aggressive and dangerous in the remote reaches up north.

[quote="dforeman"]What I would recommend is that you call your State Department of Natural Resources. Most states have a Bear (or nuisance animal hotline). They should be able to give you advice on what to do or not do in your area.

We have Black Bears here in Maryland (mostly in the western part of the state). But, they do occasionally wander down to the east. I think we even had one wander down from Pennsylvania onto the Eastern Shore last summer. Mostly they are just are nuisance though getting into trash cans, dumpsters, bird feeders, etc. However, Black Bears in different parts of the country can have very different behavioral patterns. Your DNR would be your best source of information.

I friend one year, while we were hunting in Western Maryland, had a bear wander by the spot he was sitting on the ground. The bear decided to have a seat not 5 feet from his spot and stare for a while. My friend reached over and snapped a twig off of a bush]
There are a lot of them here. We see them in our yard several times a year and they cross the road at the corner of our yard. I see them once and a while back in the woods and they don't bother us. They have a den back to the back of our land which is a 1/2 mile from our house. I have never seen one on the deck before but I think they have been there before. If they start doing damage I have some friend with bear dogs that will run them off and them they won't come up by the building. They are kind of neat to watch but they stink like something dead. I have seen several while deer hunting and some got very close. That just clean you system out

Rule One: Do not feed them either intentionally or unintentionally.

It is that unintentional one that usually creates the problem.

A couple of years ago, we had a sow that decided she liked cake. Somebody living in Western Maryland one hot summer had their window open one night and a cake in a dish on the kitchen table. The next morning they had a surprise when they walked into the kitchen to find a bear sitting at the table eating cake. They chased her off. But after that incident, they had a Black Bear Sow breaking into people’s homes looking for cake. I seem to remember in one instance there was a box of cereal (cake/cereal I guess it all tastes the same to a bear). Eventually, she just became such a nuisance and possible threat DNR had to put her down.

Did anyone besides me see Jay Leno showing the Ohio news station clip where they gave a live illustration of what a woman reportedly saw. Apparently she saw a black bear run across her lawn so the TV station tired to give a demo.

Someone apparently cut out some cardboard shaped like a bear painted it black and they had a news crew member crouch down and rock the form back and forth as he crawled across the lawn carrying the thing.

Laughed so hard it was absolutely ridiculous looking. Only saving grace was the black bear form hide the new crew members face so hopefully no one would know exactly who did it. Totally stupid.

Ed in Tampa wrote:Did anyone besides me see Jay Leno showing the Ohio news station clip where they gave a live illustration of what a woman reportedly saw. Apparently she saw a black bear run across her lawn so the TV station tired to give a demo.

Someone apparently cut out some cardboard shaped like a bear painted it black and they had a news crew member crouch down and rock the form back and forth as he crawled across the lawn carrying the thing.

Laughed so hard it was absolutely ridiculous looking. Only saving grace was the black bear form hide the new crew members face so hopefully no one would know exactly who did it. Totally stupid.

That would explain why I don't watch TV any more. (Well, almost. I do catch a little bit of Dancing with the Stars just because it is immensely popular with my womenfolk.). Thanks to the miracle of technology and the late great Steve Jobs, I can now relax in perfect comfort on my couch, and get interesting and useful information from all you guys instead!