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

[mowin]

Electric wire without bait would be completely ineffective against bears. Also bobcats. Also foxes. Also dogs.

About the only critters stupid enough to engage a hot wire without any bait that I can think of are humans and cows.

That is so untrue. Farmers have used hot wires for yrs. Do you think they went around baiting them?
Bait on a hot wire is not needed. Why would you want to entice predators closer to your setup. Several friends of mine are beekeepers. Electric fence around there hives. Never a strip of bacon or any other bait used. They have seen bears cautiously approach and get zapped. Never a breach.

 

[MissE]

That is so untrue. Farmers have used hot wires for yrs. Do you think they went around baiting them?
Bait on a hot wire is not needed. Why would you want to entice predators closer to your setup. Several friends of mine are beekeepers. Electric fence around there hives. Never a strip of bacon or any other bait used. They have seen bears cautiously approach and get zapped. Never a breach.

There is a difference between having a single strand of wire and multiple wires. If you have 3 or more, most animals can't help but touch it when they are snooping around. A single wire is easy to miss. Bait attracts them to the single wire.

 

[mowin]

There is a difference between having a single strand of wire and multiple wires. If you have 3 or more, most animals can't help but touch it when they are snooping around. A single wire is easy to miss. Bait attracts them to the single wire.

Sorry, bait is useless on hot wires. But if you think it helps, have at it. But posting false info saying hot wires are useless against any predator unless baited is incredibly arrogant.

 

[JTHawk]

I haven't had to try out this theory on bear scaring, but I had very good results running off raccoons using one of those compressed-air boat horns. (A friend who heard this used her vacuum cleaner to chase an aggressive raccoon out of her house, confirming my theory that loud obnoxious noises will deter otherwise aggressive animals.)

My house in the mountains has glass doors on the back patio and it occurred to me that if a bear were to come in during the night I would have to go past him to get out of the house, so I bought a battery operated bullhorn with a siren and keep it by my bed. The siren is extremely loud and I do think it would run off a bear

 

[azygous]

Noise makers work against bears until they don't any longer. By that I mean, a bear will often be intimidated by raucous noise if they haven't heard it before.

When I moved to my subdivision 27 years ago, there were only a hand full of residents, around a dozen households. Today, there are upwards of 300. At first, the bears here outnumbered humans, and the bears were uncertain how to behave around humans, not being used to sharing the neighborhood with us. So, beating on a pan with a spoon or using an air horn, shooting a shotgun off to make noise, and even just yelling at the bear all worked to run them off.

Not so any longer. The bears have been onto our tricks for years now. Some years back, when a young bear was pressing his snout against the side of the run trying to figure out how to get at the tasty morsels inside, I yelled at him. No reaction. I got the air horn and blasted it at him from fifteen feet away. No reaction. So, in complete frustration, I grabbed a volley ball size rock and walked up to the bear, who still hadn't noticed my presence, and dropped the rock on its back. I do not recommend this strategy. But the bear did finally run off.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that a neighbor had been mauled by a bear that had encroached upon her deck to her house. It was determined by the wildlife officers that the bear became upset and enraged by her clashing two pot lids together making a racket very near the bear in the close confinement of her deck.

It's been many years since anyone has had any success scaring a bear away by shooting off a gun in the air. The problem is, there are just too many humans here now, and they are all making a lot of noise much of the time, target shooting and just being noisy going about the business of living here. So bears have adjusted to the noise the way people in noisy cities adjust to the noise, by tuning it out.

It still comes down to hot wire being the best deterrent. And baiting the hot wire, by the way, is not something I pulled out of my imagination. The wildlife officer who had come to answer one of my calls after a bear visit recommended that I install hot wire around everything I wished to protect and to bait the wire with peanut butter.

 

[cmom]

I know there are bears around but I have never encountered any but have most other predators. I do have a friend who lives on the other side of the state who has issues with bears. Once they discovered her hot wires they stay away from her coops but she still sees them quite frequently in her yard. I asked if she has ever baited the wires and she said no. I haven't either. Once the predators know they are there, they will avoid them. I do have multiple wires up and my fence is grounded so if anything tries to climb the fence and touches the hot wires they will know it. There is a bear hunting season with a quota and if the quota is reached before the close date for the season then the hunting season is closed. One year a few years ago the quota was met on the first day of the season so then the season was shut down.

 

[Folly's place]

@cmom , your electric wires are close to your actual run fencing, which makes a difference too. Any predators aren' going to be just running through an open area, they will be scoping out the fencing generally, so more likely to notice the hot wires.
My understanding about electric fencing against bears is that it's best near some wall, baited, and not out in the open, at least at first.
Mary

 

[cmom]

Luckily I haven't had any encounters with bears.

 

[ElizaMay]

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.

View attachment 2723589View attachment 2723590Good times.

Holy SHEET, Batman!!!

 

[Tired old Rooster]

People who have never dealt with a bear are quick to suggest shooting them with live ammo. My experience with bears over twenty-six years and the stories my local wildlife officer tells me from his personal experience all point to rubber shotgun rounds and electric hot wire as the top strategies for controlling bear predation.

In fact, it is not easy to kill a large wild animal. Again, I'm speaking from personal experience. As a park ranger, I have had to put down sick and injured wildlife. Even when the animal is standing still and I was able to get within "can't miss" range, the animals were very hard to bring down.

The true story from my wildlife officer I will always remember is when a local farmer tried to shoot and kill a bear that was causing damage to his property. He succeeded in wounding the animal, and that more than a bruise from a rubber round will enrage a bear. That bear returned, broke into the farmer's house, and killed and ate him.

I think we ended up at cross purposes. When I mentioned live ammo, I meant in respect to avoiding anything to do with the bear personally, only resorting to the shotgun if he breaks in to attack. Last resort thing to hopefully save your life.

For the rest, go with electric fencing. Should do.