BRISTOL, Tenn. – What does a bear do in the woods?
Well, if it’s a black bear in East Tennessee, it’s increasingly coming out of those woods.
And then roaming around local residential areas, including Skyline Drive in Bristol – much to the surprise of animal caregiver Lynn Spivey when she recently looked out a window while cat-sitting for a family.
“It was digging around a bird-feeder and it just looked at me when I started taking pictures,” Spivey said of the healthy-sized bear she spotted. “It was calm and didn’t look a bit afraid of me. But I know I didn’t want to get anywhere near it. My heart was racing like crazy.”
Spivey likely won’t be the only human seeing a bear in a backyard over the next several weeks, said David Brandenburg, wildlife biologist for the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency in Morristown.
“Am I’m surprised there are bears out and about in neighborhoods? Not at all,” Brandenburg said. “Because this is one of the months that’s really critical for bears. They’re roaming anywhere they can, as far as they can, looking like crazy to consume food and fatten up for the winter [hibernation] months.”
Brandenburg noted that area black bears have been in such a frenzy to find acorns, grain and other food that more than 20 have been killed in road accidents this fall – in Unicoi County alone.
“The reality is if you live in East Tennessee, you’re sharing land with a lot of bears,” he said. “And there’s a chance you might see one. Especially now.”
As for the bear recently seen on Skyline Drive, no residents were willing to publicly discuss it Wednesday afternoon during a stroll along the scenic street. And among the Skyline Drive residents who would privately speak, general reaction broke down into three groups:
n “There was a bear around?”
n “We’ve lived here 21 years and never seen one.”
n “We’re near woods. You’re going to see a bear now and then. That one wasn’t the first. It won’t be the last.”
Brandenburg said residents on Skyline Drive and across East Tennessee can do more than anyone else – including the wildlife agency – to keep bears from constantly nosing around their neighborhoods.
“Frankly, if you live in East Tennessee, you have to shoulder some responsibility by knowing what things encourage bears and then not do them,” Brandenburg said.
That includes keeping bird feeders covered, properly storing garbage cans, feeding pets indoors and, he said, most of all, never deliberately providing food to bears.
“When you don’t take those steps, you’re actually providing rewards for bears when they do come on your property,” Brandenburg said. “The best thing we can do is keep the bears wild and in the wild. But we need residents and neighborhoods to help us do it.”
rbrown@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2512
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