Growing pears may become more challenging http://www.kansas.com/news/state/article167385947.html
I’ve often wondered why they haven’t attacked my trees when the fruit is ripe. Around here they mostly destroy the neighbor’s bird feeders/houses and like to get into the trash.
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I will have to go with electric here I am sure. I have 100’s of pictures of them here. Here’s a few
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Scary.
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I can see how you would say that. They are very docile though. I’m just worried about the fact that they eat every darn thing in sight.
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The only thing that has kept bears out of the orchard (so far) is a 5’ wire fence topped with electric wire. And the bears seem to be able to tell when the electric wire is working or not (don’t ask how I found out).
There is a very good book on black bear behavior, “Out on a Limb” by Benjamin Kilham. A fascinating read, even if you are not dealing with bears but especially if you are. It gives great insight into how bear “society” work.
Bears can be docile and they can be amazingly aggressive. It all depends on the circumstances and the bear (to some extent).
The book is worth reading if you may need to deal with bears, if only so that you can understand why sometimes the bear takes off when you turn on a light, and sometimes it charges you (and when that charge is for real).
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My wife saw a juvenile black bear down the street about 6 blocks from our house in early August and Burnaby is in the heart of Metro Vancouver.
We saw them all the time in rural Powell River when I lived and worked up north. One bear just smashed down my landlords apple tree an hour before he and his wife planned to harvest their apples. They went into town for an early supper and came out to harvest apples only to find their once healthy tree broken and scattered on the ground with most of the apples missing or partially eaten.
Anthony
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been a bad year for bear problems here. not in the country but in towns. bears getting into garbage, bird feeders and dirty grills. they are even staying in the towns. its such a problem that the warden service stopped relocating them and don’t want to shoot them leaving the people to deal with the bear themselves! friend of mine called them about a sow and cubs in his yard. they told him to do what he had to do too get rid of them but don’t tell anybody!
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Here in southcentral Pa bear are becoming very common. I have too many trees, too spread out to enclose them with a single fence. They do seem to hit trees after I take down the concrete mesh fence I use so I guess I’ll let the mesh fence up longer. Here’s some damage from this year. They break a limb but don’t eat any of the fruit. Apple, pear and plum trees have all be “pruned” by bears. They haven’t destroyed any trees yet, just left them misshapen.
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I have a buddy who is a trapper by trade. He works on a 35,000 acre ranch. He puts out 70-80 traps at a time and checks them daily. I was with him once and a damn bear had flipped 30 traps in a row. No evidence of why. No animals in them, nothing left eaten. He says they just get all silly and will do it sometimes and not others. Can ruin a whole night of work for him…
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They’ve been invading Connecticut for some years now, building up a bigger and bigger population. I keep seeing sightings reported by local TV stations and the angle they always take is how cute these bears are. The comments are filled with people claiming that we’re invading their land and need to stop building. Fact is, there were no bears in this state a few decades ago and the forest cover is still on the increase. These people seem to be impervious to any forms of facts or reason.
A very limited bear hunt bill, one limited just to farmers in one county, is currently in the legislature here. Not sure if it’s going to pass. Oh, nevermind. The state senate killed the bill. No bears in my neck of the woods yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
What do you do to keep bears out of your fruits and vegetables? All I can think of is a high electric fence, which I’m sure the neighbors would love.
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Not a bear but…
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Is that mountain lion? Not as scary for your fruit, but definitely worse!
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Three of them. Looks like a mother and a couple of year old cubs. Game cam picture from April 29th. Picture is actually from my parents house.
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I can’t remember hearing about a bear in Alabama in the 1970’s and 1980’s. They started showing up about 25 years ago with occasional sightings. So far this year, 3 have been relocated from urban settings in North Alabama.
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You all may recall my post a few weeks ago when I found a dead Armadillo near my home, which was shocking to me since they’ve never been seen here.
Then last week this happens…and just so you know, this is less than 4 miles from my house!!! Certainly TN has bears over near the Smokey Mountains-lots of them. But I’m just 20 minutes north of Nashville and 200 miles from Smokey Mnts and we’ve darn sure never had bears in this area before! What is going on with nature??? ha
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We have so many Bear in Florida now they are contemplating another hunting season like they had 3 years ago.
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increases in bear population is for the same reason we have more crows, gulls , raccoons and opossums. more human garbage/ crops. before man , it was hard for these animals to find food over a large area. now our agriculture and garbage provides them with high calorie food they would normally not have if we werent here. Maine has the highest bear population in the lower 48 . we have incidences of them getting in garbage but its not as bad as other states. we have a hunting season that you can hunt over bait so that keeps the garbage eaters in check. if they ever stopped hunting over bait, we would be over run by them in short order!
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Years ago Connecticut was largely de-forested and much more agricultural. Between the loss of habitat and the farmers who didn’t want these animals damaging their crops/livestock, there was a complete loss of bears. Makes sense. It’s not a great idea to have such a large deer population in a densely populated state like CT, bears are worse! Just my opinion, which I guess is not popular in modern-day CT.
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my brother lives in Bristol, CT. he loves to bbcue. he stores his grill in his garage when he’s not using it. one morning he was going to work when he heard some crashing in the garage. he hit the garage door opener and there was a sow and 2 cubs eating the grease out of his over turned grill! she had busted a window to get in. he called the state conservation officers. took them 3 days to live catch and release them in another area. they said there was a big problem with them and many had to be shot because they were so destructive. once they get the taste of human food, esp. sweets they get hooked ,like junkies, and seek out where humans/ their garbage is.
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