Living With Bears

It is June 1st. In another month the Chequamegon comes alive again with the sounds of baying dogs chasing bears. Our little black dog, Betty gets to yell at her boyfriend, Ringo, the bear dog. Bear hunting these days has become a very techy enterprise but that is for another post. Today I want to talk about what it is like to live closely with black bears. Sally and I see the bears themselves or their scat or their footprints a couple of times a week during the summer. We really enjoy their presence in our world and we don’t begrudge the bear hunters their enjoyment either. I am sure that the bear population would prefer that they stop chasing them but such is life in modern America.

It is interesting how often we find their scat in the middle of the forest roads when there is a whole bunch of forest surrounding these roads. They also seem to enjoy using the bridges particularly. Sally and a long time Forest resident were discussing this pooping trend several years ago and they decided it was because pooping in the grass tickles. I can attest to that as well.