Beware of bears!

January 24, 2015 • 12:02 pm

by Matthew Cobb

In November 2010, Leanne Zackowski posted a brief YouTube video consisting of  photos of a black bear getting into a bird feeder. Earlier today Andrew Hendry (@EcoEvoEvoEco) tw**ted those images today, and Professor Ceiling Cat insisted they were posted. The final photo is of a park sign in British Columbia. Read it to the end.

 

44 thoughts on “Beware of bears!”

  2. I live in BC. I have had bear cubs eating dog food off my porch, and mama bear and cub eating clover one foot from my window. When I see them, I grab pots and pans and run out of the house clanging. This scares them and they get outta Dodge. Its tempting to feed cute fluffy bears, but it isn’t safe for them. Pots and pans teaches them to be wary of humans.

    I also have herds of elk circling my house, doing the same thing. The entire house will shake, as if in an earthquake.

    1. The elk clang pots and pans to scare bears? I wonder what they are cooking in them. 😸

    1. A family friend who lives in northern Ontario frequently has bears on his property. Once, he was barbecuing a steak and went inside momentarily. When he returned, he saw a bear trying to steal the steak. He said to the bear, “that is my steak, not yours.” The bear was startled, tangled itself in the barbeque & ran of making that “our ouf ouf” sound bears make.

      1. If I run across one of these while in the woods with another person — I’ll just make sure I can run faster than the other.

    3. Where do you hide from a bear that can do this?

      Behind a friend. A very self-sacrificing friend. Who can’t run as fast as you.

  8. “Grizzly bear shit has bells in it…” It actually says this? Only a few lines above it uses the term “feces”. Ha!

  10. I’ve heard this joke before, but I’m amazed to see it on an actual sign in a park. It does look like this is at a private campground, which would make it more believable.

    Anybody know the origins of the joke? I’m guessing it’s probably not original to this sign, but it sure would be awesome if it were….

    b&

      1. I’d heard it well before that book was written. (great read, BTW)

        But I never heard it in Alaska (’68-80) where I expect I should’ve.

        My oldest bro and his wife, when they were out in Fairbanks, went bear-watching out at some dump site. Normally, you’d either have a death wish, or you pack a .45 when in the outback (besides using all the other bear precautions, esp. not smelling like a walking refrigerator, blood, etc.).

        But since this was the dump, where the bears are well-fed, my bro left the heat at home. They arrived after a bit of a hike, and were surprised not to see any bears — and eventually discovered the place had been closed for a week. The walk back was an especially cautious and noisy one.

  11. Makes you wonder about hanging your food up at a campsite. Animals can be very clever.

    Never went with the bell thing, but I do carry pepper spray when in bear country.

    1. I had the same thought about hanging food in the trees. My college girlfriend’s stepfather had a house in Pennsylvania where bears would dig through the trash cans and make an awful mess, so if he heard the bears making a racket he would shoot them with rubber pellets to shoo them away – until one night he heard the racket and went outside to find a bear had picked up the trash can and carried it a few doors down to do his foraging. After that, step dad started keeping the cans in the garage until the last minute on trash day. I would’ve thought of that before grabbing a gun, but whatever – bears are smart f**kers!

      1. I live in the woods and I rarely get bears (except when I have clover).

        The dumb neighbours get bears all of the time because they don’t keep their garbage properly hidden. One neighbour kept putting the garbage in the wood shed, and the bear would rip the door off the hinges and take the garbage. Neighbour would fix the shed, put the garbage back in…and the bear would rip the door off the hinges again

        *facepalm*

          1. From what I have read, bears can also smell noms from up to 2 miles away *and* they can smell the food that is inside your house. The only reason they don’t break in is because it would be too much trouble.

            There is a town in Montana, I think, that is right in the middle of a bear migration path, and bears have been known to break through windows in order to get food. The town was featured in a documentary about a fellow known as *The Bear Whisperer*, as it was his job to kick the bears outta town without violence.

            I believe that the footage in the photos above is from a documentary where black bears were filmed getting up to no good. In another scene, a house was left ‘abandoned’ with fridges and cupboards full of food. The bears got in by ripping off windows and doors, and they went straight to the kitchen, ate everything in sight, and left the place in a shambles.

          2. * Temporarily * abandoned; the bears remedied that situation.

            Thanks for sharing that – and love your screen name! Two of my favorite people in college were “sorority girls” named “Muffy,” both were classy and witty lives-of-the-party. I have never met a Muffy I didn’t like.

  14. Been pepper-sprayed – worst day of my life so far. I think bears may react similarly. Dogs are not fond of it, either. Not sure about cats….

      1. I used to train people how to use it. Had to take a full blast in the face at close range to be certified as an instructor (don’t ask me why!). Pure pain.

        1. One of my … “friends” would be too close … got a whack with pepper spray when it was being rolled out to non-firearms officers a couple of decades ago. Getting hit by the pepper spray (or CS, or whatever it was) was considered an essential part of the training when the stuff was introduced. I believe they’ve dropped that requirement, so naturally the death rate among the copper’s employers has increased.
          I believe that it’s not intended to be fun.

  15. When I was a seasonal ranger I used to see idiots sending their kids over to resting bison so that they could be photographed together. No one was killed that year but signs mean nothing to some people.

  16. Some years back, when my husband was at our cabin in Mariposa, CA, sitting in the dining room, he looked out the window and there was a bear with his paw pressing against the glass, looking back at him. Although both were startled, fortunately, the bear didn’t come into the house.

    We’ve seen numerous bears in CA, OR, WA, MT, WY
    BC, etc. We do our best do view them from afar and stay out of their way.

  18. Haha, I love bears & I love bears all the time! :)). … When I was little I had seen so many white V-neck moon bears — we went to local zoo to watch moon bear playing circus on every Sunday for several years — the zoo happened to be the ending point of our jogging route.

  19. I recall seeing a warning recently that people in some areas had got into the habit of dispensing pepper spray around their camp sites as a “prophylactic” against bears coming into the camp and raiding for food. But in fact it’s having exactly the opposite effect, and is habituating the bears to the spray, as well as encouraging them to associate “pepper spray” with “food”. Which is not a very good idea.

  20. Normal practice here (NW NJ), at least until I get my bear-proof pole in the ground, is to take the feeders in each evening when it’s not winter (when the bears are sleeping).

    That doesn’t always do it, since bears are out in the daytime as well. This past spring, one in particular became a regular visitor, and I had to chase him off several times.

    In anticipation of leaving town for a few weeks, I tried hanging a feed from a limb on the nearest walnut tree. The bear climbed out and knocked it down.

    So I moved the hook over to a branch on the limb which would certainly not support the bear’s weight anywhere near the feeder. So what does he do? He climbs up the tree, goes out on the limb, then breaks the branch off.

    I just hope 3″ galvanized pipe sunk in 4 feet of concrete will do it.

  22. Does anyone remember the NYT article years ago about the “Deep Creek Leaper?” Tourists were supposed to tie food to a rope between two trees, but the bear would climb one of the trees and jump down, grabbing and breaking the rope in falling. A park ranger said that “There is a significant overlap in intelligence between the dumbest tourists and the smartest bears.”

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