mountainclmbr
Member
About 10 p.m. last night I was watching news and my wife said she heard something outside. I got up and looked out of a window by the front door and nothing. The two dogs are following me and are not barking or seeming alarmed. The motion triggered flood light in front is off. I then looked out of the kitchen sliding doors onto the deck that wraps around 3 sides of the house and nothing. I then went to a large window at the back of the house to look at the rest of the deck area which is about 10 ft off the ground in back. I could not see anything....I mean not even the deck! Then something hit the window right in front of my face and the dogs started barking like crazy. The window did not break. I refocused up close and saw that I was face to face (inches away) with a black bear standing on its back legs to get to a bird feeder I had hung way up high under the eves of the house. The bear then got alarmed by all the dog noise and ran across the deck, climbed up on the railing and jumped off into a nearby pine tree and climbed down to the ground. The bear was probably 150 pounds or so. Not real big for this area which is right next to the boundary of the Roosevelt National Forest. I had my Kahr MK40 .40 caliber in my front pocket, but ran to the bedroom for the HD shotgun which is loaded with 3 inch 00 buckshot. I let the dogs out onto the deck and went out to check that the bear was gone. He was nowhere to be seen. This morning I found that there was a dirty swipe right at my nose level on the window where the bear had tried to swat me. The bird feeder had the bottom ripped out and a humming bird feeder was crunched as well. I guess I need to get them up higher or just let the birds fend for themselves when the bears are not hibernating.
About a year and a half ago, in the fall, a bear clawed out a drier vent then bashed in a window (frame and all) trying to get to the dog food stored in the wash room. I was not home at the time, but it seems the dogs chased the bear off and prevented it from getting inside.
I would still rather deal with the bears than urban gangs though!
About a year and a half ago, in the fall, a bear clawed out a drier vent then bashed in a window (frame and all) trying to get to the dog food stored in the wash room. I was not home at the time, but it seems the dogs chased the bear off and prevented it from getting inside.
I would still rather deal with the bears than urban gangs though!
Well of course I reacted on instinct and took a swat at it to make it go away. I guess it had one of those invisible thingies that you can see through so I never hit the thing. Then those noisy four-legged beasts the humans like to live with started making all kinds of noise. So I decided I'd best get out of there before the human came out of its den with one of those noisy sticks they have. Good thing too, since it DID come out with one of them, AND it let loose those four-legged beasts they live with!
So I can't offer any advice except that I know for sure that there is no such thing as a bear proof cooler. I second the idea of moving the bird feeders away from the house and I might store the dog food in the basement if that is an option. A 150 pound bear in the house would probably create more excitement than you wanted. Do they manufacture motion activated noise makers like maybe a siren?
