Black bear sightings on the rise (more on FReeper's son and dog attack)

ABC-7 via SOUNDOFF ^ | 12-04-03

[AAABEST]

COLLIER COUNTY, December 3, 2003— Bears are looking for food and they could be finding it in your back yard. About 20 bears a week are spotted turning trash cans into take out meals, stocking up for the winter. But if you get in the bear’s way, it might attack.

Brandon Wojciechowski almost lost his dog Sparkle a month ago.

“He got 70 stitches or something crazy like that,” said Wojciechowski.

Sparkle was attacked by a black bear.

“He was trying to protect our house and kind of wound up on the losing end,” said Wojciechowski.

Sparkles survived after Wojciechowski and his brother were able to scare off the bear and its cub.

“That's all we were thinking about...getting him away,” said Wojciechowski.

Bear sightings are on the rise in Collier County.

“Right now they are trying to find a lot of food because the cool part of the year is coming up,” said Jeff Carter of Caribbean Gardens.

The bears fatten up by feasting on just about anything they can find.

“They're very smart and they have a great sense of smell. They will follow their nose quite a ways if they think there is something they want to eat,” said Carter.

That includes things like garbage, pet food, bird food, even dirty grills.

Cut down their food supply and chances are the bears will go somewhere else for dinner.

But if you do see one – leave it alone.

“Don't mess with them, don't approach them, don't get close. Back off and wait for them to leave,” said Carter.

It's a lesson Sparkle learned the hard way.

“Now he is growing his hair back so he doesn't look so goofy,” said Wojciechowski.

Collier County has one of the largest black bear populations in the state. Combine that with cooler temperatures and wildlife officials say they are getting two or three bear sighting reports a day.

Bears attacks are very rare and experts say if you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

[Judith Anne]

My neighbor videotaped a black bear in her goat shed, eating the corn. She lives about 5 miles away...we have a big yard dog to chase off the snakes, panthers, coyotes, wolves, and bears in the neighborhood.

Last spring, I pulled out of our drive onto the rural highway, and saw Pup standing at the side of the road with a doe and her fawn, all together, as though he were escorting her safely across...he does bring home the hunter throwaways in the fall, of course, and enjoys them a lot. But because he can't tell the diff between a deer and a stock animal, as long as they're alive, he protects them.

I watched him kill a copperhead in the yard,once; he just circled and circled, barking really loudly, lunging for a bite when the snake's head was turned away, until he finally got in enough bites to kill it.

Prayers for Sparkle's complete recovery--brave dog!

[CrazyIvan]

Tony, have you ever seen a cougar in your area? During the flood of'93 I could have sworn I saw one in upper Missouri near the center of the state. I've not told too many people for fear they'd think I was nuts. A couple of years ago I bunped into a conservation officer and he said it wasn't that unlikely.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Yes. Wife's cousin saw one near the Lake (Lake of the Ozarks) this past summer less than a mile from our place. He estimated it was about five feet long and 100 pounds or so.
I've heard what sounds like a big cat yowling late at night. Blood curdling !

[TonyWojo]

Once a Cougar was laying in the Driveway, only time I saw one.

[blackdog]

I had a bee-yard and honey processing shed a while back at our vacation home in the Poconos. The yields were amazing per hive and mites were non-existant. Then one fall friday night as we pulled in for a nice weekend, there were three bears stung up so bad their eyes were swollen shut, wading in honey and broken frames of dead bees. It's actually the bees they eat first over the honey. The bears could not see and they would wander off a hundred yards or so to rest from the pain of stings and go back at it every two hours or so.

A month later they had torn the siding and doors from the honey house to get at the processed frames and boxes just due to the smell. They destroyed the building. They destroyed about 2,000 pounds of filled hive bodies and twelve hives. All tolled, about $20,000 of damage. It took threatening letters from our lawyer to our insurance company to pay the claim.

We installed 5' high voltage high tensile fencing with a gate around the property to keep the bears out. It stopped the deer damage on the landscaping too. You hang bait tabs on the wires of the fence so the bears go at them nose first and bang! high voltage right up the curious bear's snout into his brain. They don't come back and go elsewhere. Professionally installed fencing runs about $3 per foot which is robust enough for bears.

[AppyPappy]

A small black bear crossed my wife's path near our house last year as she was driving to a meeting. We haven't seen any but you can tell when they are around because the dogs go nuts.

[GladesGuru]

If any animal is attacking you or is, in your opinion at the time while you are under attack, a serious risk to either your life or likely to inflict serious injury, you can shoot the attacking animal.

In any case, remember that "'tis better to be tried by twelve than carried by six". No mere animal is worth serious injury or death.

For those addled intellects having trouble following this line of thought, try really, really hard to remember what happened to the folks at the web site Grizzly.com. That flaming ass thought he "understood" bears, but reverenced them so much he told a ranger he wouldn't mind "being bear scat".

A grizzly actualized his warped fantasy. PS The bear also ate the idiot's idiot girl friend, too.

Those aren't "furry people" as the animal whacko crowd believes - there is a reason biologists use the term 'large bodied predators'. For the non-biologists, a predator eats the body of its prey.

Wanna be scat?

[blackdog]

My old lab had a thing for any critter which got the best of him. Skunks especially. One suspiscion of skunk and he's be on guard duty seeking his revenge(which never worked out). He hated copperheads too and would keep at them until he killed them. I'd have to take him to the vets every time because he like most labs took the straight in, honest, clumsy approach at everything. His head would swell up like a basketball from the bites.

[Judith Anne]

An apparently mated pair of panthers carried off a calf about four miles from here. The rancher didn't have a video cam but he told us he watched the whole thing, and it was totally silent, no noise from the cow, the panthers, or the calf. He didn't have his rifle on him, and it was over before he could have gotten it.

Now he has big dogs and a donkey protecting his (small) herd. I hope that works.

I'm somewhat concerned about letting the grandkids out in the yard without us and the dog. Kids are littler than calves...

[Judith Anne]

Pup was copperhead bit several years ago, and his lip on one side was really swollen, but it didn't seem to bother him eating or drinking, and cleared up within a couple of days. I've never seen him bit again...

He's always right with the grandkids when they're out, the oldest is 9, youngest 4. He lets them mess with him, try to ride him, but you can tell he's keeping watch.

[alaskanfan]

It's now too cold for the brownies to come around. They are asleep for the winter, so I can safely feed the birds. Meanwhile I have purchased a Remington pump to discourage them from coming around again.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I never saw as many snakes around the lake as I did this past summer. I think I dispatched 25 of them, 20 or 21 with my .410, two with my lawn mower and a couple more by throwing a rock. I know, I know, they keep the mouse and vole population in check but if they confined themselves to the woods, I'd be a lot happier and they would too.

[OldFriend]

Yes, and sharks are our friends too!

How I hate the so called 'expert' knowitalls.

Every fall the bears roam far and wide to fatten up prior to hibernation.

They certainly do attack anyone who might appear in their sights as finding food is their primary goal and anything getting in the way of that foraging is going to be attacked.

[G.Mason]

"For me, this story is meaningless because the state is not identified, only the county."

Try clicking on the article? .......

[alaskanfan]

The enviros tell us we have no right to affect populations like this. I guess we should forget about any kind of economic base.

I often ask my friends how the salmon ever managed to survive on the Kenai river before the environmentalists/biologists came up with their escapement levels for all the different salmon species.

Mostly met by vacuous stares.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

High temperatures come and go. Eric the Red and his merry band of Vikings established a farming colony on Greenland in the year 986. Their community lasted until about 1400 when cold weather returned and they moved to Norway and Sweden.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

:)... only you, EMB!

[JSteff]

Bear spray is cheap and works. You can get it for under $30 on ebay.

[lepton]

Pup was copperhead bit several years ago, and his lip on one side was really swollen, but it didn't seem to bother him eating or drinking, and cleared up within a couple of days.

Most snake-bites by venomous snakes are "dry" - that is they contain little or no venom. That's one reason why it is no longer recommended that you put a tournequet on a snake-bit limb - there is only some chance that the snake injected, and of that, most of the time people would survive, but most of the time a tournequet is applied, the person is going to lose the limb, or at least have to deal with the shock of lactic acid being dumped back into the system.

Infections, however, are the norm.

[henderson field]

Note to Wojciechowski: put your garbage can in the garage.