Where we live, the never-ending story is the amazing wildlife we’re surrounded by. Our home sits on acreage, surrounded by forest, about 6 miles out of town. It’s been interesting what we have encountered: coyotes, bobcat, deers, once a solitary cougar, opossum, garter snakes, noisy frogs, lots of birds and among them barred owls and hummingbirds, – and big black bears. Yes, that’s plural.

For years, we observed an older male strutting through on a regular basis, probably checking on neighbors’ beehives. However, something must have changed by end of 2023, because we suddenly had to deal with major damage in our garden. The answer became clear the following spring, our outdoor camera contained footage of a black bear sow with two small cubs. And she was ferociously hungry!

During the following weeks, the damage became more and severe, a two-hundred-fifty pound black bear is no match to smaller fruit trees. She broke into the secure storage for the chicken feed, and it cumulated in a wood-splintering crush into the chicken coop that woke me up past midnight. We relocated the chickens to a friend and removed anything bear-tempting.

Fast forward two years, the bear cubs grew up and have made the forest beyond the fence their close-by-home. Many times a week, they stroll through the garden, play with and groom each other, which is lovely to observe. However, the damaging rampage through the garden is very disturbing, and I’m afraid to tend to my veggie plot as I don’t want to be a surprise to the bears.
Unfortunately, we have some neighbors that are careless with their garbage cans. I bet these bears know what “Monday” is, – trash collection day. We hope this story doesn’t end bad for these bears.
Don’t feed the wildlife, keep the bears wild.