This big guy would come for a visit every morning while we were having our coffee.Cat isn't worried about this bear.

Our cat's name is Wanabe because he wants to be a Cougar he attacks everything that comes into our yard including bears.

We had to stop feeding our birds. We wanted this big guy to stop coming so close to the house.

We never knew when we would walk out the door if he would be on our deck.

Black bears will usually run if they see you or hear a sound but if black bear attacks they attack to kill do not play dead fight them back and try to get away. You can try backing away slowly first. Don't try climbing up a tree they are good climbers and often climb to the top of our big trees.

I also think the bears here can smell the food in the house and that brings him around, not much we can do about that we have to eat.

My photos are not real clear here but I had to take them from inside the house and through the screen.

The first big bear is right by our back door and our deck the black item to the right is our grill with a cover on it. The bear with the white spot is in our meadow taken with a field camera. We can see the meadow from our back door. My husband mows me a path down to the meadow and back up to the yard. I often walk the path to get my exercise but I try to make sure to take one of the dogs with me.

Last year we had a mother bear with three cubs. We also had what my husband thought was last years cub because of it's smaller size. So that adds up to 7 different bears just in our yard that we saw.

In the 2000's Black bears have killed 15 people. That doesn't count the people who were attacked and survived.

2001 a black bear entered an elderly women's house and killed her. She was 93.

2001 a black bear killed a baby girl while sitting in her stroller on her porch at her home in New York.

We use to rarely see the bears here. We saw them at the dumps but then they closed all the old dumps and then the bears started coming to homes looking for food.

The world record weight for an American black bear is 880 pounds.

We have friends, their daughter was attacked by a black bear. The dad and his daughter had gone deer hunting. The daughter was 14 and she ran into a black bear in the woods the bear came after her and she managed to get up a tree and made all kinds of noise trying to get the bear to leave. He wouldn't leave he came up the tree and got hold of her foot and pulled her down. She was screaming and her dad and the other man that was with them heard her and came running. The bear was dragging her further into the woods. They ran him off but she had already been hurt. The bear had mauled and bit her. She had to have many, many stitches to close up all the bites. 

 

On Tuesday Evening when this lady let her dogs out they ran into a black bear. This is not far from where we live. Goes to show how you always have to look before going outside and checking before letting the dogs out. Our dogs would have done exactly the same thing.

Springer Spaniel survives bear attack!

Lori Oelrich knows this firsthand. On Tuesday night when the 10 p.m. news was over, Oelrich let her two springer spaniels out of her home just outside of Rhinelander on Highway K before going to bed. She instantly knew something was wrong.

"I've never heard a dog scream like that before," she said.

The dogs, Copper and Nick, had busted a black bear rooting through the garbage cans on the side of the garage.

"It was just terrible," Oelrich said. "He was nosing by the garbage and he startled the dog and the dog startled him."

A battle between the bear and Nick, the older of the two dogs, ensued. Oelrich said every time the dog got away the bear took him back in its grasp. The bear finally let go for good just a few feet from the Oelrich's front steps, but it didn't look good for Nick.

The dog was bloodied from head to tail, as was Copper, who stayed close to Nick. At that moment, Oelrich didn't know Copper had escaped the attack because of the blood on his white fur.

Oelrich and her husband, Al, who awoke to his wife's calls for help, hurriedly called their veterinarian and rushed the dog in.

Oelrich said she was so nervous and scared she could barely dial the phone.

Nick had one tooth knocked out and gashes on his neck, sides and hind quarters.

The veterinarian pulled the tooth and was able to stitch up the wounds, but the shaved fur, stitches and drainage tubes are a very real reminder of what happened so close to their front door.

"It makes me a little leery to go outside at night now," Oelrich said. "It's terrible to have something like that happen to one of your dogs."

Oelrich reported the incident to the Department of Natural Resources and Wildlife Services, which handles nuisance bears, but the bear wasn't considered to be a nuisance.

If the bear continues to return after the garbage cans or other attractants are removed, then it would be considered a nuisance, according to DNR deer and bear ecologist Keith Warnke.

The garbage cans are what attracted the bear to Oelrich's yard, and attractants are the biggest source of bear problems.

"Anything even remotely related to bear food is going to be attractive," Warnke said.

Bird feeders, deer feeders and garbage cans can all draw bears to places they wouldn't ordinarily go. Even if garbage cans are in the garage, bears can often smell them.

"Garbage cans are a huge attractant to the bears," Warnke said.

Even if there are no attractants in your yard, that might not be the case with the neighbors, so bears may have a reason to be in the area.

Warnke advises keeping dogs close and under control when they're let out to avoid situations like Oelrich's.

"Dogs tend to get hurt when they end up cornering a bear or surrounding a bear," Warnke said.

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