It's been 26 years since I've had a bear in my house

[azygous]

The chickens are fine. They are protected by hot wire baited with mackerel and peanut butter. What I didn't expect was to finish up tonight with the chickens, turned on the hot wire, and came inside my house to find a full size, 400 pound black bear in my living room raiding my meal worm colony.

There he was. There I was. Fifteen feet apart. My living room is tiny, so it was a very intimate encounter. I was very calm and quiet mainly because I didn't wish to be killed, and I also wished to minimize the damage a 400 pound bear could do to my house. I propped open the front screen door, and pointed to the exit. The bear, who was scarfing up meal worms and wheat bran substrate, casually declined. Instead he decided to go out the window he came in, knocking over the seven foot ficus, smashing my Christmas cactus, crushing my lamp, and leaving the screen crumpled up like a balled up piece of newspaper.

I had picked up the can of bear spray, and having held back dousing him while he was inside my house, I let him have it once he was off the porch. This time the wind was coming from behind me so I didn't get sprayed as has happened in the past. But he only got the red cloud of burning love from behind, having little effect. But I still had my shotgun. It's loaded with non-lethal rubber loads. He sauntered off down the grassy slope with me following close behind. I got off one shot, but these loads are not very hot, so it probably fell short of hitting him. He will be back. They always return to the scene of the crime.

It's been 95F, and the house is hot, but since I wish to be able to sleep sometime tonight, I closed all the windows except my bedroom slider. As I mentioned, it's been 26 years since the last time a bear burgled my house. The other time, I had just moved in and had left for ten minutes to gather rocks for a retaining wall I was building. When I returned, there was a bear in my living room. But that bear had demolished every room in the house in the ten minutes I was gone. There are still scratch marks on the bathtub and on my kitchen stove and the window sill over the kitchen sink. The microwave was smashed on the floor. Drawers were yanked out onto the floor, and broken house plants and spilled potting soil were strewn everywhere. It took six hours to clean up the mess, and the bear came back that evening for more.

This time the mess was isolated to the end of the living room where my worm farm was. Luckily, the bear was satisfied only with the worms and not the beetles. As it was, meal worms were crawling madly all over the living room, but they move slowly. If he had dumped out all the beetles, those suckers move fast and in no time would be running over every inch of my 900 square foot floor space. So I have that to be thankful for.

Good times.

 

[azygous]

No, I didn't get much sleep. think it was close to 3 am when I finally passed out. It takes time for adrenaline to work its way out of ones system, then you crash.

Amazingly, the actual destruction was minimal, and besides, the damned insurance company installed a hefty $2000 deductible on my policy a few years ago.

Mealworm wrangling took some time. Some sadly got crushed when the 400 pound bear and 110 pound human stepped on them. That made for an unpleasant aspect of cleanup.

Yes, my brain will be busy today trying to figure a way to run the hot wire across my porch windows.

Luckily, I am very cool under pressure, or I would have been badly injured if I had panicked. The bear was cornered. That's extremely dangerous. A few years ago, just four miles from where I live, a woman was badly mauled in her home. and required months of reconstructive surgery.

I have experience dodging angry bears. Having chickens is a bear magnet, and this is far from being an isolated incident. Bears have assaulted my coops and runs at least four or five times over the years, most with me present for the fun, and once the bear was inches from my face snarling at me with only a steel hog panel between us. Now I have bear spray strategically placed in the run, outside the run, and in my house.

 

[azygous]

Bear hasn't been back. Yet. But I'm ready for the smelly beast. It was pretty easy screwing in insulators around my windows and doors, and then baiting them with peanut butter. I have a voltage tester and I get the full 10,000 by just splicing into the nearby hot wire that keeps the cows from leaving juicy landmines on my porch.

 

[azygous]

Do you expect That bear will be back? Could you tell if male/female, size, weight, condition etc.? If it returns a third time, hopefully it will get a taste of delicious electrified bacon and will then permanenty move on.

There's no way to be certain this bear will return after being shot with the rubber shotgun load. But past behavior indicates that a bear or other predator experiencing pain in association with their invasion will likely not return.

An interesting alternative to trapping used by Colorado Wildlife Department is what they call a "pepper barrel". I think I may have mentioned that all but one bear that I've shot with rubber loads never returned. The exception was a juvenile bear, perhaps three or four years, was shot with a rubber load and even pepper sprayed, although most of it got on me due to the wind being from the exact wrong direction. (I've since made a note to self to check wind direction before using pepper spray.) And he just kept returning.

This little bear just wouldn't learn its lesson. So I call in the wildlife officer for help. Since this was a young bear and it wasn't guilty (yet) of any crime other than hanging around being a nuisance, it was decided to bring in the pepper barrel and set it up behind the run.

It consisted of a half a steal drum with a "holster" for a bottle of bear spray set with a hair trigger to set off the pepper spray when the bear stuck its head inside the barrel to nibble on a delightful hunk of honey roasted pork.

I just happened to be looking out the window and saw the bear return. I quietly crept outside to watch the fun. And it was a hoot, for me, not the bear, when he fell for the bait and took a full shot of bear spray right in the face. The bear turned and ran off up the slope in a most agonized zig-zag pattern, obviously blinded and in a complete panic to escape the burning beast that had just attacked him.

For a brief period of pain and panic, this young bear was spared slipping into a life of crime which would eventually get him executed. But the best part of the story was when I called my wildlife officer afterward and described what had happened. He was in a meeting with a couple dozen other department officers and he turned around and described to them in detail what I told him I had observed. Why was this such a big deal? Because not a single one of them had ever seen a bear actually get punked by a pepper barrel.

Okay, so how did I know that it was a big male bear and not a female bear or a young bear that invaded my living room? Boar bears, as mature boy bears are called, are huge. They max out at 400 pounds. I've only seen such a specimen of that size once before and it was from a car. The bear seemed like a slightly smaller version of a Volkswagon beetle. He was huge. This bear in my house was that size.

One time I had a sow bear charge me. Luckily I had a little vestibule made of steel hog panels just outside my run I had built for the rooster to shelter in when he was doing outside duty. When she charged I ducked inside and pulled the door shut just as she hit. We were mere inches away from each other and she was trying to get at me and I was screaming at her and trying to act more ferocious than she was. I guess it worked because she backed off, but didn't leave. I ran into the house and phoned for help.

Later, the wildlife officers showed up and shot her out of a tree with a tranquilizer dart and carted her off to execute her for the crime of trying to attack a human. They told me she was a young adult female. She was less than half the size of the boar bear standing in my living room.

So, I've had first hand field experience over the past twenty six years with all sizes and types of bears to know what I'm dealing with. I should have earned some sort of degree by now.

 

[azygous]

The bear came back this evening while I was seeing to my newest pullets. The exact same time as when the bear showed up in my living room two nights ago.

This time, though, I caught sight of him while he was about 40 feet from the house. I went into the house and grabbed the shot-gun with rubber loads and the bear and I went for a little stroll, him leading. He kept stopping and looking at me, likely thinking that he won't get hurt because it didn't get hurt the time before.

Finally, he really posed for me, and I shot him butt good. He ran away as fast as his fat little legs would move him. All but one of the bears that I've shot with rubber loads, left and never returned.

 

[azygous]

Yes, I've had "helpful" bears try to remodel lots of things around my property. They are especially talented at trying to enlarge coop vents so the chickens can get more air circulation.

 

[MissE]

I have not had one get inside yet, but when I was in high school, one bit through the door knob and ripped of some siding. The electric fence was then extended to include the yard until he quit visiting.

400 lbs is a big ol' boy. You may need some unwelcome mats under your windows or a hot wire around your house. He will be back.

 

[Callender Girl]

I am impressed that you are able to sit and write rationally about what must have been a horrifying event. And, it would also freak me out to have a gazillion mealworms wandering around in my house, although I know that pales in comparison to the bear.

Thank goodness you and the chickens are safe.

Does insurance cover this "natural disaster"? And, did you get any sleep? The heat (we hit 100 yesterday and I don't have air conditioning) makes sleeping tough enough, but the fear of your visitor's return must have made it nearly impossible.

Hope today doesn't bring another drop-in by the bear.

 

[MissE]

Yes, chickens do make excellent "bait". That's all that's needed when using poultry electric netting. It works because it forms a barrier.

My setup is a single wire that any predator can ignore, effectively evade by dodging, hopping, scooting, or ignoring due to heavy furry hides. This is why bait on the hot wire is necessary. It's often the only way to get a predator to pay attention to its existence and get them to touch it with a wet nose or tongue, the only vulnerable parts on their bodies.

Well, there are other vulnerable parts, but not sure how to convince them to expose those areas to a hot wire.

I know some think baiting a fence is cruel, but better a zapped predator than destroyed property or livestock, which could then lead to a dead predator.

I giggled when you mentioned cows touching the wire. I swear ours would touch it every 30 seconds just to see if it was still on. 5 minutes into a power outage and those buggers would stage a jailbreak.

 

[neo71665]

Good ya ok but would'a been way more than a 12 gauge and pepper spray flying from me.