Bear with me

Someone sent me a photo of a tree with a bear at the top looking down at a tiny orange tabby. According to the story, this was the second time that day the cat, "Jack" had treed this bear! I had to spend some time telling people who were saying stuff like "Wow, a MAN EATING bear chased up a tree by a cat…" and other ridiculous things that, actually, the species of black bear that inhabits our part of the country (and New Jersey, where the cat/bear story took place) is known to be pretty docile. A decent, informational site can be found here.

Bear on Deck

I discovered this a couple of years ago when, one night, the dogs went nuts and the next day I saw some bear scat (poop) on the lawn about 6 feet from my deck. It was the first year I had bird feeders up in the summer and was religious about filling them. I didn't think much of the scat, except for I knew not to go out when it was dark. I think it was the third summer I was in the house I live in now.

Two nights later, I was up late, I think it was a weekend night, watching television from a chair right next to the open window in my living room. It had been hot that day, so I had all the windows wide open to let in the cool night air. I was relaxed, watching a movie with the lights off, when the dogs started growling really low and I thought I heard someone come up on the deck, because the boards started to creak a few feet away from where I was sitting. I muted the television and got up slowly. By this time the dogs were starting to go nuts again, so I put them at the back of the house. When I came back out to the living room, I all of a sudden wondered why the motion sensor light didn't go off, but then I heard a CRASH! I turned the outside light on and there, straddling the banister of my deck, was a yearling bear with his arms (I swear they looked like a gorilla's arms, they were that long!) stretched waaaaaaaaaay up on the tree next to the deck, looking back at me, very frightened. I had a round plastic temperature gauge, and it was swinging back and forth next to the bear's arm. He must have seen my face shining through the plate glass window because all of a sudden he rushed up the tree so fast that it shook the house. And he stayed up there.

I called the only place I could think of at midnight, which was the local police station. I told the woman who answered that I had a bear on my deck and I was too scared to go near the windows to close them. The woman kind of laughed and said to scare it away by making a lot of noise, like with a pot and spoon; that usually worked.

By the time I got the pot and spoon out the bear had ventured down the tree again and onto the deck and was eying the full feeder I had hanging right in front of the picture window. I banged with all my might and yelled and he did go away so I could close the windows.

I decided I had enough excitement for the night so I took the dogs, who were still pretty squirrelly, and I went to bed. For about 15 minutes. Then the dogs started barking like crazy again and I went out into the living room, assured that whatever was out on the deck could not waltz through the screens into my living room. I heard a banging and a wrenching and when I put the porch light on, I saw the yearling grab the feeder, rip it down from its hook, pull the top off of it to get to the seed and sit down munching away.

At that time I decided "what the hell"and sat down to watch this fascinating creature who was obviously starving. It looked at me once in a while, but it seemed to know, like I did, that the piece of glass separating us would serve as protection for both of us. It was then that I fully realized that I am indeedn privileged to be living in this creature's habitat and that I never have a right to think that these animals are encroaching on my territory!

I had a couple of minor bear encounters later that summer-it turned out that because of the weather-there was not enough natural food for them, so bears were seen more that year than usual.