If You See a Black Bear, Use Common Sense Around Them

Admittedly some people have a phobic fear of the common Black Bear. Here, in northern Minnesota, the black bear is as common as the alligator is in Florida. OK, I'm exaggerating a little, but there are a lot of them here. As compared to meeting a moose in the woods, I'll take the bear any time. By the way I have met up with a moose unexpectedly too. Moose have been known to charge a moving train, just because they think they can win. Some how the train wins every time.

The black bear is basically a vegetarian or opportunistic feeder. Their normal diet consists of berries and nuts, but when given the opportunity to eat food garbage left by humans they can become quite a nuisance.

As a kid many, many, years ago our family had a large raspberry patch. We would sell berries at the end of the driveway in the summer. Repeatedly we had people drive into the yard to warn us that while one of our family members were picking berries at one end of the patch, there was a mother bear with cubs working the other end of the patch.

My mother often related the story of the time she was having coffee with the neighbor and looking out our second story window she saw the neighbor kid and I climbing the ladder, which was attached to the house as a fire escape, to get away from the bear that was at the foot of the ladder.

A few years back I purchased a house about 20 miles out in the country, dense forest for miles around. The previous owner had a real bear problem because they kept 4-5 garbage cans by the garage. Bears were there looking for food almost every night. We on the other hand recycled and composted 99% of our waste. We had no garbage can and we washed all food containers before storing them for recycling. Within a couple months the bears left, looking for greener pastures. With no food supply they had to move on.