Bears! Bears! Bears!

I’ve lived in the New England suburbs for thirty years. While my property is partly wooded, I never really worried much about running into a bear…until recently! 

When I first moved to New England in the early 90’s, I was awestruck by the natural beauty of the suburbs. However, I learned that bears inhabited the Northeast, and at first that worried me. 

My bear fears were quickly dispelled, shortly after I moved to Connecticut when I attended a free bear lecture at our local library. The lecture taught us all about the type of bear found in the Northeast, the American black bear, Ursus americanus. The size of the claws were shocking!  We learned that while black bears did call Connecticut home, they weren’t usually found in our area, but in the counties further North. Easing my mind, I never really gave bears a second thought. 

Until recently. 

The first time I thought I saw a bear was at the end of the pandemic. My daughter and I were in the car, not far from our house, when one ran across the road. The large creature ran across so fast, I wasn’t sure that we even saw one, and really only saw the “tail end”. We started hearing of more and more sightings. Our town’s local Facebook group would mention them, and occasionally we’d hear of one in our neighborhood. We never saw one on our property, and figured the noise from our dogs would scare one away anyway. Once the property behind us was sold and a barbed-wire fence put up for cows, we figured our chance of seeing a bear was probably even slimmer. I later saw one from a distance while in my woods; it was on the other side of the fence and moving quickly away.

We started frequently hearing of more bear sightings in the last two years, with reports and videos on social media, the news, and YouTube, to name a few. Our neighborhood frequently sees bears; we guess that there are at least three, perhaps a mother and her two adult offspring. 

Part of me thought seeing a bear would be exciting, as long as it was from a safe distance and from inside. I’ve joked that a bear would not have a chance to maul me – I’d die of a heart attack first. In all seriousness, though, bear attacks on humans are extremely rare. Bears don’t really want to tangle with humans, they just want to get away. Bears do what comes naturally, it’s we humans that put these majestic wild animals in situations that become dangerous. 

This summer, it appears bear sightings are as frequent as seeing deer (which is a lot). One evening in early June, my husband was running late from work, and my daughter and I had just finished dinner. I noticed something out the window – lightning bugs! I stepped outside to watch them. It was a beautiful, still and quiet summer evening, full of fireflies. As I stood on the deck, I noticed a strange sound. 

Shuu…shuuuu…shuuu…

That’s when I noticed the creature sauntering out of the woods into the yard. It was large and black, almost a shadowy figure, but darkness had not completely taken over the evening. The sound I heard was from large paws shuffling through the grass. My brain did not register at first what I was seeing. “DOG? No. DEER? No. OHHHHHH!”  Like a scene from a classic Casper the Ghost cartoon, I realized what had emerged below, right in front of me, mere yards away… A BBB-BEAR!!!!

He was HUGE. He knew I was there. For a second, he paused and sniffed one of our yard chairs, before looking up at me and sniffing the air. He had a mark across his leg, like he had a scratch that had healed and left a scar.

I slowly backed away and into the house. My daughter wanted to see him, and we looked through every window, but to no avail. He disappeared quickly.

After that initial sighting, we didn’t see him again, but did find evidence of a bear passing through, in the form of bear droppings. 

My dear friend and neighbor, Susan, also has had visits  from this majestic, beautiful bear. We know it is the same one because of the mark in his fur. 

Our next sighting at my house  was one beautiful morning, a few weeks ago. My husband went out the door to open up our chickens for the morning. As I saw him go one direction, on our outdoor camera, I saw a bear quickly going the other way!

This was a smaller bear than the first, a “junior” bear. We later determined he had been eating some of the berries that were in season on the hill in front of the house.

Carolee Mason, Municipal Animal Control Officer for Newtown,Connecticut, has been a resident here since 1977. She has worked at Animal Control for close to two decades, and has seen the uptick in bear sightings in recent years.

Carolee says that it is in part due to the shrinking of the bears’ natural habitat due to increased building, and also because of increased footage, with technology like cameras on phones, social media coverage, and cameras on homes (like Amazon blink). In the late 1800’s there were no bears in Connecticut. Nowadays, the bear populations are increasing; a healthy bear can have an average of three cubs a season. Still, bears like the ones we saw have most likely been around longer than we suspect; we just didn’t realize it until now, with proof on camera.

Carolee laughs remembering the first time that the department heard of a bear sighted in town. It happened in the 90’s, before everyone carried a smart phone with a camera. It was believed that a bear had broken into an outdoor fridge in a resident’s pool house, to get to the soda cans inside. A bear sighting was such an unheard-of occurrence that when a resident finally did get a photo of a black bear in town “in the wild” and brought a print in to show everyone at animal control, they were so excited that the photo was proudly pinned on the wall, as proof! 

Carolee says bears are hungry scavengers, and will go for the easiest food they can find. Mamas also just want to feed their cubs. “What would you do if your child was starving and there was no food? You’d do what you could to feed your young.” She reminds everyone that bears will eat birdseed and garbage left outside, and that bears can be seen out and active all day. Keeping chickens secure, taking bird feeders down, and not leaving garbage out are the best steps to avoid repeat visitors. Most of the time they will walk on by. “Bears don’t realize your house is a house”; to them it is just a part of the territory they travel through. If you do see a bear, Carolee says “make lots of noise, so it knows you are there before it gets startled. Bears DO NOT like to be startled.” A startled bear can become a dangerous one, like the one recently caught on camera this summer in Tennessee, invading a food booth at a carnival. When a worker walks in the door, the bear is startled and leaps at her while trying to get out and away, scratching the worker’s arm. The bear was later euthanized.

Black bears can be seen all year round, though they do a form of “hibernation”, with a lower body temperature and metabolic rate, referred to as “denning”. Carolee says you might see a bear out anytime, partly due to them “getting mixed up with our weather”, and the warmer-than-usual winters that we’ve seen the past few years. 

Black bears are the smallest bear found in North America, weighing up to 500 pounds. Mama black bears are good parents, and will usually send her babies up a tree if she thinks danger is near. Bears are very skilled climbers!

Black bears are being seen in “new” territories, all over North America. While rare, there are even sightings of black bears down in Texas, in the hill country! Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed 154 bear sightings in 2022, up from 80 in 2021, and up from 25 in 2020. 

At our house, we have our chickens secured, and only feed them enough food that they can consume that day. We keep a small transistor radio on low in the run. It helps keep predators away, though it might not keep a bear from passing through. Carolee says that “if a bear really wants to pass through your yard, he’s going to.”

We try to make noise when we go outside. We don’t leave food outside or in the camper, and bird feeders are put away through the summer. We are doing our best to be bear aware.

Other good advice is to use electric fencing with beehives, and don’t put your garbage out the night before. Adding ammonia can help deter a bear from dumpster diving, as well.

It’s still exciting to see a bear in the wild, and it took me close to 30 years to see one! Please note that ALL photos in this post were taken from inside, or are clips from security cameras. No humans were ever “up close”.

While we humans grow up  thinking “teddy bears” are cute and cuddly, black bears are WILD animals, and can be considered Apex predators. Keeping them naturally wary of humans, and not “used” to us as a food source, will allow humans AND bears to stay safe. 

Have you seen a bear in the wild? If so, where? Tell me about it in comments, or just say “hello” so I know you stopped by!