This will be short, but I wanted to share. We've lived in the rural mountains of Western North Carolina for seventeen years and have seen our share of bears roaming through the yard, crossing back roads and getting into park trash. But now we have one who seems to want to move in. She likes it here.
More below with a couple of bonus pics.
About three weeks ago, my wife went out the back door onto our deck to sip morning coffee and look at our beautiful yard. She gazed to her right over the sloping yard out back and then turned left to look up the hillside. There was the bear, eight feet away, big and black and just lumbering past the deck's three easy steps. My wife froze as it passed, went back inside and watched for it out the front windows. The bear just walked along our driveway and headed directly for our trash bin about a hundred feet down the drive.
Since then, she has returned almost daily to rummage through the compost, mess with any trash we've put out and generally just hang out. We've been successful at shooing her away when we see her but she always comes back another day. This morning however, she wouldn't leave. She grabbed a bag of soda and beer cans and drug them up the side of the yard and was meticulously checking every can for signs of life.
It's reaching the point where something must be done, but I don't want to have to shoot her. I've called the authorities but they won't come out unless she's actually in the yard and she usually doesn't stay that long. I would love to have someone capture and relocate her. We live on the edge of the National Forest so I guess she's just become comfortable being here. We've always had dogs but have been without one since our dear Lucy passed in mid April. Guess we need a new dog.
A dear friend told me the other day that in native cultures, this repeat visitation means that she wants to give us a rug. I hope not. Thanks for reading, wish us luck and bear love and a better camera than my phone. And don't worry, living out here is worth it in every way. We just don't need a pet bear!
Bear stories and advice are welcome! Grrrrr!