Click on any photo for a larger image July 4, 2008 It was noon, time for lunch, when Mr. Black Bear ambled out from the tree line of Harriman Park. By the time I had grabbed my camera he already had his head in my neighbor’s garbage can. I yelled at him so that he would lift his head for a good picture, but he ignored me. This young bear obviously knew his way around and was already comfortable foraging in the presence of noisy humans. Meanwhile, my neighbor’s elderly mother had walked out of her son’s garage door, seen Mr. Bear, and was cowering behind her car. She was trembling and hoped the bear would not come after her. I assured the poor woman that the bear was much more interested in garbage than it was interested in her. I walked her back to the garage door. She fumbled with the lock but finally managed to open the door and retreat to safety. Out West there is a saying: "A fed bear is a dead bear." Black bears are shy by nature, but once they become accustomed to eating garbage they become a real nuisance and a potential danger. If it turns out that Mr. Bear is really a Ms. Bear, by next spring she will be foraging through our garbage with at least one cub. Some day this bear may decide to wander through a screen door to eat someone’s roast, or it may take a swipe at a foolhardy teenager who wants to see how close he can get before the bear reacts. It has been claimed that a bear is faster than a race horse over a short distance. I don’t know if this is true, but bears are very fast. Mother bears have been known to gently tap human teenagers who bother them in national parks. But a bear can easily maim or kill a human with a single swipe of a paw. Once a bear has had an unfortunate contact with a human it is often shot. We are very fortunate that we live in an area where there is still a great deal of beautiful, wooded land, but that land is disappearing quickly, and our bear population is increasing rapidly. We may soon have to our garbage in the same heavy steel bear-proof boxes used out West. In the meantime, please keep your garbage can inside until just before pickup. Protect our beautiful bears. Remember a fed bear is a dead bear. Robert I. Rhodes
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