Interesting prints in the snow, bear?

[Ruralhideaway]

Can anyone ID this print? They are being sun degraded, these were the few clearest ones. Same animal? Pardon my cold wrinkled hands. That's a lie they are always wrinkled just less sometimes lol.

 

[azygous]

Yep. A pair of 'em. A sow and her cub(s). If you have green shoots of grass coming out, that's what they want right now. If there isn't any grass coming up, those bears will likely crawl back into their den and snooze for a few more weeks.

 

[Ruralhideaway]

Yep. A pair of 'em. A sow and her cub(s). If you have green shoots of grass coming out, that's what they want right now. If there isn't any grass coming up, those bears will likely crawl back into their den and snooze for a few more weeks.

Holy cow I wondered I thought nooo not likely. Game cam going over there right now lol. It's ten feet from my barn in the back where there's tons of snow, don't get back there much but snow was frozen enough to easily walk on today early. Thank you. (Slightly scary)

 

[azygous]

Heck, black bear are everywhere. They even come down out of the hills surrounding Los Angeles to raid people's garbage cans. Here, the local Ace hardware store over in New Mexico makes a point in keeping the back door of the store open in case a bear follows a customer in the front door. No kidding. It happens at least once every season.

 

[Ruralhideaway]

Heck, black bear are everywhere. They even come down out of the hills surrounding Los Angeles to raid people's garbage cans. Here, the local Ace hardware store over in New Mexico makes a point in keeping the back door of the store open in case a bear follows a customer in the front door. No kidding. It happens at least once every season.

I've seen their scat deep in the woods on nearby state land but these are places few ever go, no trails, no bikes etc. Quite surprised to see them hanging around here.

 

[Ruralhideaway]

Getting hotwire on the coop just became more important though. I have one bit of wall I beef to replace that's old OSB. That won't do at all against a bear!

 

[lazy gardener]

Scary. I wonder how you would possibly ground an electric fence during snow season. We still have 3.5' of snow on the ground here, and it's snowing heavily today.

Oh, @Howard E !

 

[Ruralhideaway]

Scary. I wonder how you would possibly ground an electric fence during snow season. We still have 3.5' of snow on the ground here, and it's snowing heavily today.

Oh, @Howard E !

I have a really deep ground rod nearby, maybe I could run a ground wire over from that. But I just dug post holes, grounds not too bad under the snow really.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

yup looks like a black bear to me.

 

[azygous]

All that frozen water on the top of the ground makes for a superb "ground". Nothing better than wet ground and lots of water sitting around to provide a red carpet welcome to a curious bear.

You're wise to get proactive on getting a hot wire up. It's a lot easier to discourage a curious bear than to try to change a bear's mind that has already made attacks on your facility.

Peanut butter dabbed at intervals invites a smell/taste and delivers a very strong message from tongue/nose straight to the bear brain. Highly effective.