A friend of mine had problems with a bear trying to break into his shed where he keeps his trash. He has since put ammonia soaked rags all around the inside of the shed. No more bear!

Me too k1!
Right up there with the bong smokin' Pyrenees!


RL~
Hopefully the broken bone syndrome that's been plaguing your family
will have had it's round o'three & be done.

sz~
I love your bear bombs idea!
Sounds like you & the Mrs have great pitching arms!


I'll be anxious to hear if the bear returns tonight!
(You know it'll want to read this thread offa your laptop! )

That's it for the Epsom Salts marinade, RL.

Regular chlorox in the trash bag and inside the trash can works really good here. Despite two visits this week and a FTF conversation with the big guy, he/she walked away (although under his or her terms). Definately a deterrent without getting into the trash. I'll update if that ever fails to be a deterrent.

I'm very grateful to everyone for their kind words and helpful advice. It's one of the awesome things about Pinecammers.

Annsmeal, at some point I'd love to learn more about your teepee experiences. I've considered going the yurt route for a while, which would probably be something I'd do until I could build a home/hut/shack of my own.

dl4, I think last night was an active night for the bear. We were hearing crashes and bangs coming from all over the neighborhood after he left the deck. Add this to all of the recent mountain lion sightings in our subdivision and I'd assume this is Grand Central Station for anything with sharp teeth and claws. All that's missing is Sasquatch.

Did not hear about the lion sightings in dcvr, but not shocked. Where approx were they seen?

I know of two sightings along Vigilante near both Tapadero and Desperado. I believe another was on or near Wagon Tongue Rd, also by Vigilante.

These were all of a juvenile male mountain lion.

A couple of months ago, I saw two mountain lions (probably a mother and half-grown cub) actually on the deck of what was Kenosha Auctions. Those two could also be anywhere in this area. Not too long before then, I had seen a juvenile on CR-43 near the entrance to DCVR.

Nonsense. That wiring is tens of thousands of years old, tuned to a very, very different way of life. In the 21st century, we're wired to be afraid of the wrong things. In the USA, bears kill about two people per year. Automobiles kill about 40,000.

Sorry but I disagree.
First -- the wiring is lots older. Part of us -- and them.
It's supposed to protect us -- on both sides.

We have more auto deaths than bear deaths in the year 2012 because we all drive, and rarely see a bear. That doesn't make bears safer than autos when there are one of each in our yard. I suppose you could try to tell the bear it's 2012 and this is Civilization but I sorta doubt he's "progressed" past what Nature gave him.

Also, Man made the auto and operates it himself. Somebody Else made the bear and he runs on his own. To the extent your point was that Man is more dangerous than Bear in the 2012 "Civilization" -- I totally agree. I would also concede that if I have to go one way or the other, I'd rather be lost to the bear than to Man or anything he makes.

However, my point was actually that the fear is Nature's gift to the Bear. He needs it or we are likely to harm him once he gets too close. "At the window" is too close. Not so close he deserves to be killed, harangued, or wounded -- but close enough to get the soup-ladle-on-kettle routine that announces our boundaries exist too. You can bet Bear would perform a similar stunt if we got too close ourselves. My car, on the other hand....well, she may hate me but it doesn't show. Knock wood.

Sure. That's part of the problem. Our instincts are so dysfunctional that we can't rationally address the extreme danger cars pose. Thus we encounter them frequently.



Bears don't understand the human "social contract". Unfortunately, too many humans are like bears in this respect.



More dysfunctional instinct: "I'm OK if I'm in control".



Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Humans are instinctively intolerant of any living thing that doesn't bow to our instinctive need for control. People even poison dandelions, for goodness sake.

One place where bears (and other wildlife) thrive is in the contaminated zone around Chernobyl. There, they get to exploit human irrationality rather than fall victim to it. Our irrational fear of small amounts of radiation keeps us at bay.

ANOTHER place bears thrive/live with humans and are who they are is in
Alaska.

My brother owns a cabin on the Salcha River about an hour out of Fairbanks.
The river and it's many cabin owners/wildlife are accessible by boat, plane
or snowmachine in winter. There are NO roads up to the cabins on the
river.

Frequent wildlife visits are the norm and IF you are a prudent cabin owner
you understand how to protect your abode/self from bear intrusions.

I have told this tale previously,but thought it TRULY captures the nature of
the bear and it's curiosity.

Brother has a hammock strung between two trees on the bank of the river
and it is within eyesight of his picture window in the "great room".......bear
comes sauntering thru his property (not uncommon) and takes a liking to
the hammock. ATTEMPTS to lift self up into hammock,hammock turns
upside down, bear lands on ground. Bear gets up,tries this feat AGAIN,
same result.....this goes on for about 10 or 15 minutes,FINALLY bear gets
REALLY ticked,pulls hammock down,gets entangled in the web and takes
awhile to extract self from mass of KNOTTED string. Finally, he frees self
and POUNCES on the mangled mass of what is now the hammock......he
rears up on his hind legs and JUMPS the hammock,thrashes around for
awhile and THEN, as if to say,"guess I showed you",grunts and lumbers
off the property into the dense undergrowth surrounding my brothers'
acre........my brother says it was "FUNNY AS HELL",thinks it was a yearling
still learning about life.

By the way, my brother has NEVER had a problem with bear break-ins and his cabin has an ELEVATED floor.......(enough room for the bear to
crawl up and in if he wanted to).......he is METICULOUS about food,smell
or anything else that will cause a bear to "break-in".........I LOVE Alaska
people who have been there for "awhile" understand nature/wildlife/living
rural........however you would like to describe it........it is a MINDSET of
co-existence and RESPECT.....live and let live.......

Seeing all the mentions on Pinecam of bear sightings this year, I thought this was interesting. The following quote is from Saturday's Daily Update from the Wildlife Research Institute in Ely, MN. http://www.bearstudy.org/website/resear ... -2012.html The Ely area has been using diversionary feeding stations for years and has not had the bear nuisance problems like Duluth, where bear incidents have gone up recently due to the lack of their natural food crops.

"As we mentioned before, we’re seeing poor blueberry and juneberry crops this year. We wondered how widespread this is. A few days ago, an article in the Duluth News Tribune said that bear nuisance problems are up this year and that bears are breaking into houses, sheds, and cars for food. We haven’t heard of problems like that here where diversionary feeding has been going on for some 50 years. Hungry bears here know to go to any of the dozen or so feeding stations. Reducing attractants to avoid seeing bears can be extra effective because the bears have somewhere else to go."