My Black Bear Problem

Steve

Steve

Well-known Member
Location
Massey, Ontario, Canada
This morning when we got up we were met with a HUGE surprise in our driveway..
Thursday mornings is our garbage pick-up day.. We put our garbage and recycling the night before as the pick-up in our area is early (about 9:00am).. We have a large wooden garbage box at the end of the driveway and the garbage man comes by and takes out the bags as well as the blue box of either cans or paper..
Well, because it is still warm, the black bears are still roaming around looking for food for winter.. We have a garbage box that is supposed to be critter proof but NOT bear proof...
You guessed it !!! A black bear got into our garbage overnight and when I say made a mess, I mean one hell of a mess.. Garbage all over the road, our driveway, the shoulder of the road, as well as over our front lawn..
I had no choice but to get up early and go pick up the mess before the garbage truck came..
Garbage is only once a week in our area..
Next week, I think I will have NO choice but to keep an eye open for the bear and out will come my .303 and put an end to this nonsense..

Bear meat??? It would be nice but I don't know how to dress an animal.. If I could, you better believe it I would have lots of meat..
What I will do is drag the dead body into the forest and let the wild animals have a feast.........
 

So for a few more weeks, while we wait for the real cold to come and send the bears into hibernation, you couldn't make a point of running your garbage out first thing before the truck comes? And in the meantime, maybe the bears move on because you haven't provided a midnight snack for them.

Or if bears are a usual problem, then get an enclosure that is bear proof. Whistler, BC manages for the most part to live civilly with the bears that go through town and only in extreme cases are they required to deal with fatal consequences.
 
Steve don't waste the meat, if you absolutely must shoot the bear then dress it out.

I took a buddy on his first deer hunt several years ago and he harvested a nice sized doe and when we got to the deer he took his knife and handed it to me.

I ask him what the knife was for and he said that he'd never field dressed a animal as large as a deer, I gave his knife back and told him to just think of it as a large rabbit or squirrel and that the process was the same.......what's inside has to come outside.

He did just fine and so will you.
 
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I also find that odd. Just fix your garbage and the bear will go away. No need for senseless killing.
 
Steve, I have no problem if people want to shoot a bear while hunting and make use of the meat for food, but to kill the animal just because he made a mess with your trash is senseless, IMO.

Your property was home to many bear families over the years before people started moving in taking up residence, you can't blame them for going after food sources before winter hibernation. A bear proof trash can seems to be the most logical answer to your problem so it doesn't happen again. Here are some other ways to deter a bear. http://www.bearsmart.com/live/bear-deterrents/

Please reconsider before needlessly taking the life of a beautiful animal, I would only do it myself if it was self-defense and I thought the bear was going to attack me personally. How does your wife feel, is she in favor of killing this bear(s)? If you and your wife choose to kill the animal for going after your trash, I can only keep my fingers crossed that he doesn't return and moves on, on his own.
 
Each spring and each fall, a black bear visits our back deck to get into the bird feeders. For a few weeks, we make a point of putting the feeders in the garage at night. We've never considered shooting the bear just for being a bear. After a few weeks, the feeders go back up, the bear has moved on, and everybody's happy.
 
Maybe I forgot to mention that this bear is a nuisance bear and it has to go..
We have dropped a few bears already this season that were a nuisance but let several go that were just either wondering or curious..
The Ontario government has re-opened up the spring bear hunt and also extended the fall bear hunt...
We just have way too many of those bears around and they must be trimmed down..

It is definitely not the fact it got into my garbage but rather it isn't afraid to come out of the woods and roam around houses that have pets and children.. These bears my neighbour (that lives 1/4 mile down the road) and I want to drop for safety purposes.........
 
Sorry, Steve. There is NO excuse for killing a bear simply because it was hungry and you refused to either make a bear-safe enclosure for your trash -- or -- get up in morning and put out trash before the collectors come to your neighborhood. NO excuse. NONE whatsoever.

And, unless you have a license specifically for culling bears, you'd be far better off calling the authorities to come, trap the bear, then move it elsewhere.

In the mountains in Arizona, that is what was done. Nuisance bears were not left to be killed willy-nilly by folks bothered by them for a few weeks. Nuisance bears were trapped and moved elsewhere.
 
Florida has the same problem with bears, Steve. A couple folks have been attacked and clawed up bad, as well as domestic pets. A couple weeks ago, they issued a few licenses for one day of bear hunting. Over three hundred bears were taken.

Sad in ways, because land developers keep taking their habitat away from them. And it makes one wonder how many bear cubs were left without their mama bears.
 
th

Maybe it's just that I always lived in the 'burbs. Perhaps because the story of " Grizzly Man" spooked me completely. But if I had a bear get in my garbage it would be time to move...seriously.
 
I would find it strange that the bears would keep coming to your house if you had it secured in an enclosure. Or does shooting bears not bother you?
 
We had a black bear breaking into our pickup truck with shell when we were camping in the wilderness of Canada years ago. He was going after the dry dog food we had in there. We were just feet away from him in a tent, with some wild raspberry "soup" we just made.

Scary situation, we sent out our male Malamute who was very macho to scare it away, because my yelling didn't do the trick. The bear jumped down and hissed at the dog, and he busted his way back into the tent breaking the zipper and letting in hundreds of mosquitoes.

We had a shotgun in the tent with one bullet, and also a rifle in the cab of the truck. We chose not to kill the bear, just wanted him to move on. My husband shot a warning shot over his head, and the bear continued, almost in the bed of the pickup by now.

Once he was in, my husband got into the truck and drove for miles in the dark on dirt roads with the bear banging side to side in the bed. Finally, the bear jumped out of the truck and ran into the woods again. I was shakin' like a leaf waiting in the tent with the dog. We didn't want to kill the animal, after all we were camping where he lived, he belonged there more than us. If he was attacking one of us of course, he'd have to be killed, then it's self defense.
 
SeaBreeze you give me chills. My brother has a campsite in New York state. I've never been there, but like you say he has a rifle up there in case of bear sightings. My dogs mauling a raccoon in the backyard is enough back to nature for me. Please please never let me see a bear.
 
Pappy said:
Florida has the same problem with bears, Steve. A couple folks have been attacked and clawed up bad, as well as domestic pets. A couple weeks ago, they issued a few licenses for one day of bear hunting. Over three hundred bears were taken.

Sad in ways, because land developers keep taking their habitat away from them. And it makes one wonder how many bear cubs were left without their mama bears.
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A little follow up....Florida has 0ver 11,000 black bears and YES they have to be controlled by hunting

and killing them. Florida is constantly growing and sad to say its either them or us.
 
The bear won't bother anyone any more..

It has been shot and dragged into the woods to let the other wild animals have a feast on its body...

There have been other bears around but they have kept their distance from houses..
This isn't the first bear we dropped this season.. We have dropped several just as we do every year..
Bear hunting season is here so let's just say it was hunting for us.....
There will be hundreds of bears killed within the next few weeks up here.. We are infested with them and they must be eliminated to a normal level.......

If you feel bad about the bear, do you also feel bad about the deer, moose, ducks, and other wild animals that the hunters hunt????
 
Yes, I do feel bad about the bear and the moose, deer, ducks and other wild animals that you hunters kill. I do not understand the blood lust, I imagine you enjoy killing and rationalize it in your head so that it seems like it is necessary or you need the food, which I think is hogwash, as you can buy meat in the store.
 
Cookie said:
Yes, I do feel bad about the bear and the moose, deer, ducks and other wild animals that you hunters kill. I do not understand the blood lust, I imagine you enjoy killing and rationalize it in your head so that it seems like it is necessary or you need the food, which I think is hogwash, as you can buy meat in the store.
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What cookie said.
 
Sure wish I'd have been there Steve I'd have taken him home for the meat. I've never had bear but I've heard that it can be pretty tasty if prepared correctly.

It appears some folks would have gone pretty darn hungry a hundred or so years back before the advent of modern grocery stores if they didn't hunt.......you sure can't buy "wild" bear, moose, deer, ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrel, quail, grouse, pheasants, partridge, woodcock etc etc (plus a lot of fish species) at the corner supermarket here.

I stand to be corrected but weren't the cellophane wrapped meats at the supermarket alive and cute fuzzy little critters at one time ?

Nuff said.......I'm done.
 
IKE said:
Sure wish I'd have been there Steve I'd have taken him home for the meat. I've never had bear but I've heard that it can be pretty tasty if prepared correctly.

It appears some folks would have gone pretty darn hungry a hundred or so years back before the advent of modern grocery stores if they didn't hunt.......you sure can't buy "wild" bear, moose, deer, ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrel, quail, grouse, pheasants, partridge, woodcock etc etc (plus a lot of fish species) at the corner supermarket here.

I stand to be corrected but weren't the cellophane wrapped meats at the supermarket alive and cute fuzzy little critters at one time ?

Nuff said.......I'm done.
Click to expand...


1. We aren't living in 1915 before the advent of supermarkets.

2. You didn't kill the bear for food. You killed it to save yourself from having to put your garbage out in the morning.
 

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