BEARS--live ones, not the cuddly stuffed ones...

Junie, you're scaring me.  Let's see.  If you should come across some bears (forget which ones) you're supposed to...heck!  I forgot!  I was watching something on the National Geographic station with my kids and now I can't remember what bear is what.

As far as all the other critters you named off....a mouse...I'd jump on top of the counter!  A snake, I run away from that thing as fast as my legs could take me.  I love animals, but I'm scared to death of the wild ones. 

When we travel to see our dd in Charlotte we are in very rural areas.  I think about how peaceful it looks.  I wonder if they have those kind of varments in the country.  I think I'll stick to where I live.

Shirley

Junie, Anne W had a bear in her house yesterday, she said that putting out ammonia will keep bears away from the house.

Sheila

Hey Junie-

Welcome to the "bears in my yard" club!  We live in Alaska and routinely have both brown bears and black bears in our yard.

Bears are basically eating machines....you name it, they will eat it.  The are attracted to the things you mentioned; bird seed, and trash and lots of other things too...compost piles, dog food dishes, a recently used grill with grease in the trap, even the cooking smells coming from a vented kitchen fan.

You didn't say what state you live in, but I am guessing we are talking about black bears.  In my experience, unless you end up with a rogue bear, which is VERY rare, they are easy to scare off.  If they happen to wander through your yard, and there is nothing to eat, they will just keep going.  If you see them, usually making some loud abrupt noise is enough to get them running. 

 Here in AK the Fish and Game officers will give you rubber bullets for just about any type of gun.  If you shoot the bear with them it will just give them a big bruise.  It also might make you feel better if you are really worried about using the gun, but I have to tell you, Black Bear is delicious!  You could always get a hunting license and go for it

 Some guides up here swear by using ammonia to keep bears away from camp sites.  The problem is that the ammonia has to still be wet.  Once it dries up the smell isn't strong enough.  Probably going around your whole yard with cotton balls soaked in ammonia every 12 hours or so probably isn't really going to  be possible.

Bears will also really respect an electric fence.  If you have livestock to protect, you can put up an electric fence that will cover up to 10 acres for about 250 bucks.  Once again though, unless you have really aggressive bears, I wouldn't spend the money. 

Honestly, if you don't have any livestock that lives outside to protect, I wouldn't sweat the bear too much.  Step outside and make a bit of noise before you let the dog out.  Believe me, your dog will smell a bear before you will see it!  The way most dogs get killed by bears up here is being chained out so they can't get away...that makes them easy prey.  If a dog is loose, it is VERY rare for them to get caught by the bear.  If they are outside and are running from a bear, dogs DO have a habit of running straight back to Mama, bringing the bear right back to you, which can be a problem....Unless you get in a position where you get between a mama black bear and it's cubs you should be OK.

If you see a black bear, make yourself look as big as you can.  Hold a stick in you hand to make you look taller and wave it madly about and yell, 99 out of 100 black bears will run like heck when they see that.  If the bear doesn't run, back away from it while making lots of noise and threatening motions.  Throw rocks, wave branches, growl, yell....you get the picture, act like a mad woman. 

This summer we have had 9 different brown bears that we have seen well enough to identify here in the yard.  We have not had many black bears because the brown bears either chase them away, or kill them. 

Good luck

Deb C 

Junie-

I live in western massachusetts and most years we get black bears in our yard.  Our backyard borders a conservation area.  The bears we see are not aggressive but neither are they very afraid of us.  One year, we had triplet cubs with their mother in the yard.  One of the babies was laying on its back under the hammock, batting at it, like a baby with a mobile. It was so cute!!, not so cute though when you go outside and there's a bear there you didn't see.   They have never broken into houses around here, probably enough food they don't need to, but they ate the neighbor's rabbit in a hutch.  I agree with Deb about dogs on chains being in danger.  We walk the dog on a leash at times and I have told the kids to drop the leash or let the dog off the leash if they see a bear.

It is funny, now that I have breast cancer, I am much less anxious about being outside in the dark (my dog gets his last walk about 10 pm)  because I worry about cancer and not about coyotes!!

 donna (who moved from montana to masschusetts to get bears in her yard)