my new 300+ pound listening buddy

[Mike Lavigne]

a week ago i stupidly dumped a bag of bird seed at the far end of my field behind my barn, in a spot i could see from the upstairs barn loft. so i could watch any critters eat it. i was expecting some small stuff. well.....this morning just now i got more than i bargained for. i watched him eat for 45 minutes. called my wife and told her to quietly open the door and come upstairs in the barn, we have a visitor.

since we have a 6 foot tall fence we have not seen a bear on our property before as they don't go to the trouble to climb over. he must have smelled the seed.

hope he does not return for second helpings.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Idler drive (lumbers about) with LOTS of rumble. Forget "you are there"..."he is here".
You gotta christen him Saskia, Mike.

 

[bazelio]

It bears repeating: Don't poke the bear!

Bear with me.

 

[Steve Williams]

Just in case you decide to leave out more food........

 

[jazdoc]

You may want to add this to your reading list. Laugh out loud funny!

https://www.bearswanttokillyou.com/

 

[cjfrbw]

Seen and heard mountain lions around our place in Pleasanton on several occasions in the past couple of years. Nobody wants to believe us. We walked at night around there for 25 years, but now are afraid to. No indications that they are any threat, but the thought and sight is very scary. The first one we saw in the bushes during a walk, I spotted it and turned around to my wife and the dog to tell them to walk directly away slowly. When I saw her, she was already twenty feet away because she saw it first. I didn't know she could walk that fast.

Around the last sizable temblor in April, we were walking, and I saw four in my headlamp of them gamboling in one of the lawns. It must have been a mother and her nearly grown kits. I almost had a heart attack because my wife and the dog were behind me on the path. i waved her along but told her not to run. Three weeks later, we saw one run in front of the headlights of a car in front of our house coming from the arroyo. We think it was chasing a bobcat, because a bobcat also came hurtling down our sidewalk, but turned around and high tailed it back into some bushes in front of the house.

I think with all the turkeys, pigs, and lions, either the ecosystems are being compressed, the fires are making them travel, or nature is trying to make a comeback.

 

[Alrainbow]

Bear will be back even just to check out lol. Most likely not climb if it does not smell any food. But they love barbecue lol. cook down wind

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Seen and heard mountain lions around our place in Pleasanton on several occasions in the past couple of years. Nobody wants to believe us. We walked at night around there for 25 years, but now are afraid to. No indications that they are any threat, but the thought and sight is very scary. The first one we saw in the bushes during a walk, I spotted it and turned around to my wife and the dog to tell them to walk directly away slowly. When I saw her, she was already twenty feet away because she saw it first. I didn't know she could walk that fast.

Around the last sizable temblor in April, we were walking, and I saw four in my headlamp of them gamboling in one of the lawns. It must have been a mother and her nearly grown kits. I almost had a heart attack because my wife and the dog were behind me on the path. i waved her along but told her not to run. Three weeks later, we saw one run in front of the headlights of a car in front of our house coming from the arroyo. We think it was chasing a bobcat, because a bobcat also came hurtling down our sidewalk, but turned around and high tailed it back into some bushes in front of the house.

I think with all the turkeys, pigs, and lions, either the ecosystems are being compressed, the fires are making them travel, or nature is trying to make a comeback.

lots of cougar in our neighborhood.....my wife saw one in our yard last year; but we are 100 yards from a 10,000 sq mile wilderness area. packs of wolves are even being seen about 10 miles from where i live. Grizzlies are about 125 miles north still (we think). 2 herds of Elk roam our hillside and we have them standing in the road in front of our gate about every three weeks.

i'm all good with it. there are worse things we might be dealing with right now for sure.

 

[treitz3]

Bet ya' won't do that again, Mike!

Tom

 

[AudioLibertarian]

Bears do enjoy a friendly scratch behind ears .

 

[MadFloyd]

I love black bears! Got to meet a few up close this past August at a place I was staying at in the White Mountains of NH.

 

[Bobvin]

I clearly remember my racing heartbeat while camping out on one of the islands on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We were sea kayaking and I set my tent just above high tide line on a gravel beach. In the night I heard what sounded like footsteps in the gravel around my tent, but hard to be sure with the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Then there was the faint sound of grunts and sniffing. My heart was in my throat—do I lie there silently and see if he decides to make me into a burrito snack, or do I make some noise hoping he’ll move away. I chose the former and thankfully he wasn’t in the mood for a nylon wrapped human burrito. When daylight came we found tracks all throughout our camp.

 

[MadFloyd]

Probably a good move! There be grizzlies there! Much more dangerous than black bears.

 

[Bobvin]

Black bears love to scour the beaches. Many times we’ve sat offshore just outside the surf line, watching as a small group of black bears grazed the beach. When you see one turn over a rock with one paw that would be impossible for a single human to move you get a glimpse of the power of these big lumbering beasts.

 

[DeadWax]

There be grizzlies there! Much more dangerous than black bears.

Definitely! Fatal black bear attacks on humans are so rare -- more so than any other species of bear -- that they occur on average of once per year across North America. I read stats indicating only about one black bear out of 1 million will attack a human in a predatory manner. I suspect attacks only occur when cubs are nearby.