Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Bears have returned to Texas

They're Back




A number of bear sightings are worrying people across West Texas. Back in late June, a black bear was spotted near Garden City in Glasscock County. There was another bear spotted on Hwy 80 west of Alpine. Since then, there have been so many sightings, officials are trying to figure out how best to control the bears.

It seems like now is the perfect time to refer our Texas friends to N8ly's bear capturing technique:

How to Capture a Bear, by N8ly

There are more and more sightings in Louisiana, too. They're no threat to people, they almost kill themselves running when they see people. THey get dangerous only when they're crowded, and people leave out their pick-a-nick baskets with blueberry pies. Hey hey hey HEY!

There have been several black bear sightings in Murrsyvill, PA. where I currently live. One was less than a mile from me as the crow flies.

good post, Boobad

Agreed. If they were so fearless why do you have to bait them to get a shot at them? I was in Maine fishing once and although they were thick in the area we never saw one. They avoided human contact.

People need to secure their garbage and not feed them and you're fine. Trouble is some people don't secure their garbage or they feed them.

I've spent countless hours in the woods in both Grizz and black bear country. I have seen numerous black bears and felt I have had no reason to worry. I feel much safer in the woods in bear territoy than on the streets. People are way more dangerous and common than bears, just read the papers.

How many of you recall (as a kid) going to the town dump to watch the bears?
For those of you that haven't had the opportunity to partake in this nature-based social show, it was a pretty big deal.
My folks would put beer and pop into the cooler, pop some corn and put it in paper bags, and load all of us into the car and head to the township dump in the Nicolet Natl forest up by Eagle River WI. The idea was to arrive sometime around dusk; a bit before. You wanted to get there early to get a front row parking space. There would be 20 or 30 cars there by dusk. Then, it would start....
Usually the racoons would arrive first and start sifting thru the newest garbage. This was the starndard for the first act. Then, the show would shift to the main act when somebody spotted the first bear lumbering thru the woods on the way to dump-dinner. About that time, the battle cry was "OK kids, roll up the windows". A good show would be 3 of them, setting back on their haunches and carefully examining the newest, freshest addtitions to the dump-buffet.
...man, I miss that kinda stuff

Is that what you called Soldier Field when you were younger?

no, only since the remodel

Ba-dum-bump. (Cheee!)

Send me some bears! Too many folks in the woods here. PETA should be OK with it, since they should be well fed.

These pictures were taken about 20 miles east of my place.

You know you're a redneck if...

Of course I'm kidding as I would probably enjoy watching them too. Either that are we both are rednecks.

Amen to that! Man is the most dangerous, most destructive, and most cruel species hands down! No I'm a not PETA member but it's a fact.

Believe it or not there were some hunters from NYC in a camp I went to for fishing in Northern Maine. They weren't there when I was there but the resort owner said they were afraid of the dark and would drive like maniacs back to the lodge when it started getting dark. They even ruined a 4 X 4 bottoming it out at high speed when they hit a wash out rushing back. Craziest thing I ever heard.

I was fortunate to come from an area that was very backward looking. My kids, who are now in their 30s, were able to watch the bears at the local dump well into their teens when we made our annual pilgrimages to my hometown. Butterfinger bars always seemed to be bear's favorite treats.

I've been around bears my whole life. Few have done anything seriously bad.

Growing up, my mother would chase bears away from the apple trees and berry patches by hollering and banging a wooden spoon on the back of her 10-inch cast iron frying pan.

When I was six or seven, we had a bear seriously damage our new Willys Overland (4WD SUV of the 50s). It was early autumn, and we figure the bear was drunk from eating fermented berries. My dad worked the 4:00 to 12:00 shift on the railroad. When he drove into our farm's driveway in the early AM, the bear went round and round the vehicle, butting the doors and fenders with his head.

A few years later, my uncle bought a new station wagon. They didn't close the tailgate after they finished bringing groceries into the house. A bear crawled into the back of the station wagon for a nap. If I can find the photos, I'll post. That same bear also ripped out the kitchen window to get the bacon grease pot off the counter near the stove.

If a bear comes to visit -- offer some hospitality. Give it a honey pot or a bowl of berries. Don't make them sit and wait, and don't make them feel like they aren't welcome at the dinner table.



I need to go hug a tree. Maybe I can even get a bear hug!

I've only had one encounter with a bear, It was in the foothills just outside Bakersfield CA..I was hiking up a ravine..I looked up and had a black bear running full steam toward me..I screamed like a little girl and it ran right by me..it was grunting as it went by....I keep waiting to see one in Central Texas

I helped take care of two live black bears (mascots) at Baylor University. Does that count for anything??

As much as black bears are harmless 99.999% of the time, walking in the deer woods with only a bow in your hand on an early morning and to take a turn and hear a bear woofing at you and see the shadow of a 400 pound bear in the moon light doing "push ups" on a log 20 yards away...

Or, before we built our hunting cabin, we used to stay in a pop up camper. One night a black bear tried to tip the camper over. Yelling at him, shining him with a flashlight, even shooting a shot gun over his head didn't faze him. Whatever he wanted(maybe me?) in the camper, nothing was going to deter him. When he finally did tip the camper over, less lethal actions were taken and I think he finally got the message.

Black bears are not my biggest love, but I doubt they'll ever try to attack me. Unless it is a mother with cubs... However, they sure do tear things up. Deer feeders, tractor seats, campers, truck tires... Maddening! I watched one climb into the bed of my pick up one night, tear open a bag of dog crap and precede to eat it... Now that is hungry!

CJ:

What is "less lethal" than a shotgun over the head? I don't think I would have had that much restraint with a gun in my hand.

I heard that a grizzly will attack you for a couple of reasons, and usually will stop the attack when they find out just what they attacked. A black bear attacks because they want to eat you.

Of the people that are attacked by a bear, I wonder what the % of survival is according to bear species?

We have tons of bears here in California. I have hunted them with a bow but have yet to harvest one. The major issue I think is like some of you have mentioned, trash and food. I saw one just after it had ripped the rear window of a camper shell and side window of a pickup out. He was just hungry and helped himself to a snack. This was about 300 yards from our cabin and when I got to looking at my truck I could see paw marks on my pickup were he had been in it. Luckily I didn't leave anything in thee that he liked the smell of. Too bad it wasn't bear season. Grilling on the deck/tree stand and sticking a bear with my bow, my kind of hunting.

Old bean bag loads... Never shot a person with one, but dang I am sure they gotta sting. Took two on the bear and at last he decided that maybe he should go the other way and stop messing with me and my pop up camper. I think the game commission would have cleared me had I shot the thing, but I had the bean bag loads and decided to see if they'd work. I had problems with bears messing with me in the camper in the past and brought them with me for that exact reason.

Black bear attacks on humans are extremely rare... As you can see from this list:

1 Manitoba - 1982, no details available.

2 Tennessee - May 2000, Female hiker attacked, killed and partially consumed by a female, 112 pound bear and her 40 pound yearling, in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

3 Quebec - July 2000, bear attacked and killed Mary-Beth Miller, 24, a biathlete while on training run.

4 Northwest Territories - June 2001, Young male attacked and killed at rural campsite

5 New Mexico - August 2001, bear breaks into house and is confronted by elderly owner who dies in ensuing attack.

6 Fallsburg, New York - August 2002, bear grabs 5 month old infant and stroller from porch resulting in death of child.

7 Quebec - September 2002, A man was attacked and killed in his campsite in the Gasp� region of Northern Quebec.

8 British Columbia - September 2002, Man attacked and killed at a remote oil rigging site in northeastern B.C.

9 Ontario - April 17 2003, forestry worker stalked, killed and partially consumed by large, male black bear. No rabies or other illness detected during necropsy.

10 Northwest Territories - 2005, 71-year-old Merlyn Carter was found dead behind the main cabin of his sport-fishing camp about 300 kilometres northeast of Fort Smith. Family members shot and killed the black bear responsible.

11 Manitoba - August 26, 2005, A 69-year-old man was fatally mauled by a black bear while out picking plums north of Winnipeg.

12 Ontario - Jacqueline Perry, 30, died in a predatory attack in Missinaibi Lake Provincial Park. Here husband was seriously injured trying to protect her and then her body.

13 Tennessee - April 13, 2006, 6 year old Elora Petrasek from Ohio was killed and her mother and two year old brother seriously injured in black bear attack in the Cherokee National Forest.

What I take from this is, for the killings in the US, those areas are high tourist low hunter areas. The bears related humans with food and then turned humans into food. The killings in Canada were remote areas. The black bears had little exposure to humans, therefore they didn't relate them with danger but instead food, and not the hand out type. Areas like Pennsylvania where bear hunting is very common, you're at far less a risk of being attacked as long as your neighbor isn't an idiot and hand feeds the bears. 9 times out of 10, the bears I see when walking in the woods have run off faster than any deer. Last, most attacks have happened in the last 10 years... As black bear numbers continue to grow and humans continue to spread into more remote areas, more fatal attacks will occur.

Knowing this beast is wandering around our hunting property in PA:

I do have to admit, when I grab a snooze in the woods on a warm sunny fall afternoon, I wonder am I gonna wake up to a black bear eating my face off like that poor lady in Tennessee? Last year we had 7 different black bears on game camera. One had the tell tale problem bear markings. Double florescent orange ear tags! Which means the PA Game Commission had trapped him in the past as a problem bear and released him, unfortunately way to close to our property!


Grizzly bears, well they are just nasty buggers who attack you cause you are in their turf. They as you said don't usually have a desire to eat you, just maul you... Even they are not as nasty as many make them out to be though. The use of common sense in the north woods, will go a long way to keep you from being attacked. That or some high powered bear spray or high powered hand gun that you've practiced with...

CJB - The list is incomplete. I know of one in NJ on a golf course. The 300 lb golfer fought him off. Think he outweighed the bear.

Those are only incidents where fatalities occur... So if the golfer fought him off, it wouldn't be on the list. There are many more cases where bears injured but did not kill people. Many involve hunters who think the bear is dead but it isn't. At least two of those happened in PA last year. They also involve people feeding bears. The NJ incident you speak of I think involved a bear trying to steal a sandwich from a golfer, apparently a rather large golfer at that! HAHA

I see bears almost every week I'm at the cabin, usually near the bird feeder, I go out and yell at them and they leave, but when I'm walking around the property I make sure to make enough noise and seldom see them in the woods, plus i usually carry a pistol.
CJ that bear looks like a real heavyweight.