Tonight we confirmed our fear that we had a black bear ransacking our trash cans, bird feeder, and gorging on the dried cat food we feed to our pond fish.

About 15 minutes before total darkness my wife spotted the bear sitting down in the corner of our field watching over our house apparently waiting for more darkness and to be sure we were finished outdoors. We watched it walk slowly up the side yard, turn towards the house, walk out behind our pool and then down to the pond. I’m sure he was disappointed when he realized he hadn’t saved any food the night before for tonight.

About that time my wife talked me into calling the police. Why? I’m not quite sure but, I was glad the first officer to arrive was able to get a good look at this bear as he calmly trotted back into the woods. I was having a nice chat with the officer about the road we’ve lived on for 23 years and how it had become the 2nd most dangerous road in the state. This, thanks to over 10,000 cars a day and a 55 mile an hour speed limit. Strange having so much crazy commuting traffic in front and a wild black bear just a couple hundred feet away trying to survive in the suburbs.

While we were talking two more policemen pulled in because they wanted to get a glimpse of this bear as well. Black bears just aren’t seen in our area any more and these guys were probably also itching for a chance to fire their weapons. Those two didn’t get a glimpse, but we did take time to try out one of their radar guns at the end of the driveway checking out the speed of the cars cruising down our stretch. Surprisingly no one was speeding out of the 15 or so drivers that went by. I would have bet anything that in 15 cars we’d have at least 1. Oh well. Poor guys, no bear, no gunshots, no high speed chases.

A short while ago, a full hour later my wife saw the bear again walking right out back by the pool.

What to do. Having a black bear out back to watch is very cool and the teens think it’s great. But, we have a 5 year, a dog (who is glad we finally figured out why he’s been acting like a cat!), and koi in the pond. Do we co-exist? Do we shoot it? Do we try to get it tranquilized and transported a couple of hours away? Would they even do that?

I have no idea what we’re going to do about it, but I was looking forward to a soak in the hot tub tonight and this visitor has caused me to scrub that plan so it won’t be long before we do something!

Advice welcome.

Bear info: bear.org

<Update 07-14-08: We haven’t seen Mr. Bear since I posted about him. Seems his fondness of us and our home was tied to the easy meals he was fetching from our trash cans. He’s moved onto greener pastures, or so we hope.>