Black bear visit last night.

Just before midnight last night, Mrs.Scout heard what she thought were car doors in our driveway, and we went to investigate. Milky Creemator on high, we had a +/- 250lb. bear trying to get into our garbage cans at the end of our driveway. Laser rangefinder this morning verified 36 yards, he was lit up like daylight within about a 15 foot cirle. After blinking a few times, we followed him with the light down alongside my neighbor's property, and across their front yard. He eventually got out of range and we heard him turn over cans 4 or 5 houses down. This was all from our second story office window, and our first bear sighting here. Plenty of deer, racoons, etc., but no bears before this. Our 120lb. husky mix, coincidentally named Bear, slept through this. What a watchdog...

not the nicest visitor.. i would hate to meet such an critter in my yard..


and about the husky.. hah. i guess he considered it non threatening event as the bear was outside and he was inside the house. if it were to come in i bet the reaction would of been different.

my friend has a mastiff that dont care who comes into their house if she is alone.. dont care what they do in there.. but she makes sure ABSOLUTELY NO ONE LEAVES the house before the owner comes home

-i remember once sitting in the couch watching the tv with the dog for half an hour waitin my friend to come home.. scratching and patting her.. but every time i tried to move towards the door the friendly lapdog became all teeth and growling cujo lookalike. so there i sat trying to be all casual. hahh

You've got a sound sleeping pup! Glad the black bear didn't do any damage to your property. Maybe you should introduce the neighbor whose cans he got into to the Milky Creemator

That's pretty cool. Glad the beastie caused no damage. Coyotes are the most exotic creature visiting our neighborhood.

Geoff

I'm glad all turned out well. I'm a big proponent in theory of using pepper spray on "problem" predators. It's doesn't cause any permanent damage but it's intensely effective and imprints on these animals to stay away from humans and everything associated with them. Even when a skunk sprays a predator, they typically learn to stay clear of skunks for the rest of their lives after even a single exposure experience.

I carry the #12 when I'm archery hunting.

Patriot- good call on the pepperspray. I have bow hunted for a while now, and it looks like a good thing to carry, especially when I hunt in Pennsylvania. Many more, bigger bears down there.

I would want to have some backup preparation before using pepper spray on a bear. Like shooting the bear dead first.

Seriously, it's not sold to be used for that purpose, and while it might work to keep skunks from returning, they can't turn around and eat you with the spray as seasoning.

Patriot said:

I'm glad all turned out well. I'm a big proponent in theory of using pepper spray on "problem" predators. It's doesn't cause any permanent damage but it's intensely effective and imprints on these animals to stay away from humans and everything associated with them. Even with the more mild skunk, predators typically learn to stay clear for the rest of their lives after even a single exposure experience.

I carry the #12 when I'm archery hunting.

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Pepper spray is very effective if used as directed. For example if you run into an aggressive bear and you use the pepper spray directly to ward off a potential bear attack. There is some scuttlebutt lately that is you use pepper spray as a repellent in areas where you might find bears a nuisance ( i.e. you spray down your trash cans or around your camp site, house etc... ) it might actually attract bears. My personal advice is to only use new, never partially discharged cans of pepper spray as your carry spray in bear country.

We have bears in Florida, and we have alligators in Florida. My fear is that they'll start interbreeding.

Mr Bigglow said:

Seriously, it's not sold to be used for that purpose, and while it might work to keep skunks from returning, they can't turn around and eat you with the spray as seasoning.

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Oops, I think I probably worded that poorly. I didn't mean that it should be used on skunks, I meant that pepper spray imprints a negative association on bears not unlike the effects of being sprayed by a skunk. I'll change my wording.

Fulgeo
Pepper spray is very effective if used as directed. For example if you run into an aggressive bear and you use the pepper spray directly to ward off a potential bear attack. There is some scuttlebutt lately that is you use pepper spray as a repellent in areas where you might find bears a nuisance ( i.e. you spray down your trash cans or around your camp site, house etc... ) it might actually attract bears. My personal advice is to only use new, never partially discharged cans of pepper spray as your carry spray in bear country.

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Good point! I'd never use it indirectly, only directly. Until this post, I didn't even realize there was a scuttlebutt or realize that anyone was using it indirectly for this purpose. That's seems quite silly since pepper spray looses its effectiveness after the residue been open to environmental exposure. It's the aerosol form that helps to make it work to begin with. It's also good advice to only carry a brand new can to protect yourself. Besides, dedicated bear spray cans empty so rapidly that I can't imagine going into the field with one that's been half used. Hopefully people aren't doing this.




A few helpful videos in use....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWnACum4SJs&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-n51xxF8K8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusOWYGombA&feature=related

What county/part of NY are you in?

Ledadd1ct- PM sent.

Fulgeo said:

Pepper spray is very effective if used as directed. For example if you run into an aggressive bear and you use the pepper spray directly to ward off a potential bear attack. There is some scuttlebutt lately that is you use pepper spray as a repellent in areas where you might find bears a nuisance ( i.e. you spray down your trash cans or around your camp site, house etc... ) it might actually attract bears. My personal advice is to only use new, never partially discharged cans of pepper spray as your carry spray in bear country.

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My thought was that it's one thing to use the spray on an attacking bear, who would think "Uh-oh he can defend himself- I better back off" and another thing to attack a bear with the spray, making him (or her) think "Uh-oh this powerful thing is attacking me, I better defend myself and wipe it out before it eats me." Of course I'm not a bear myself, but I do think that's a sound pepper spray policy.

And I DO know that a lot of black bears that menace people do so to see what will happen, hoping for an easy meal. We taste like chicken.