my furry friends

[mrbb]

maybe a change off this corona virus crap for some??

as for those that know me, know I have a LOT of bears at my place most of the yr, I am in a very HIGH bear number area with a lot of land for them to live long and enough food to keep them happy!

last week, I had a female bear show up with 2 cubs, she is a 3 yr old female(seen her mate last yr)

she is well known bear to me watched her grow up from a cub!
very easy to ID with her markings!
so this is her first time being a mom bear!
well, last week when I seen her she was carrying one of the cubs in her mouth, in a very odd way, the poor cub was swinging wildly as she walked and turned and looked about at things, the cub seemed almost life less

I watched her walk off into woods out of sight, and then return back 20 minutes later or so with just one cub just before dark that day!
so, I am thinking she might have broke its neck carrying it the way she was by accident!
never seen that before in person, was a cool but sad sight to see!

she's has been back many times since, but never had a camera handy, but I have watched her carry the remaining cub, by its nose, its ear, a leg, , upside down by its belly, she just doesn;t seem to know how to grab it safely and carry it, its a very tiny cub too, and the poor cub, does its best to RUN away from her when it can, it will many times be up a tree and as it comes down close to ground she just GRABS it where ever, to the point when he(its a male) see's here getting ready to grab it, it runs higher up the tree out of reach LOL
I guess its pretty sore, from being grabbed all over
Poor guy is going to either be another victim of poor handling, or grow up to be one tuff cookie!

I have food plots that draw and hold critters of all shapes and sizes, but many things I have do pull bears on a almost daily basis, I normally can ID about 20 different bears every yr here, and been able to track many for yrs and yrs, my oldest male has been a regular here for past 16+ yrs and my oldest female has been here for about 13-14 I forget exactly, but seen her raise and kick out 4 sets of cubs!(this bear in below pic;s is actually one of her cubs from 3 yrs ago)


but I also keep a kid pool in yard for critters to drink, play in, it gets me a lot of cool pictures off trail cam's and well, sitting on deck, I get to watch things all the time in it, from small things to 600+ lb bears at times!

I buy pools cheap after season, most times for about .50 cents each, and by a 10-12 at a time, as they do break now and then, but cheap fun for me and I refill every other day to keep things fresh!


today I had this mother and cub laying in pool here, but by the time I got camera out, they got out of pool and cub ran up tree when it seen me

but I get TONS of pic's and see bears here almost daily from mid March till late Dec!

here are pic's of cub and mom today!

 

[snoden]

Mrbb thanks for sharing! Bears are the best animal for viewing nature in the wild.

 

[slimcake]

You should probably go give Mama Bear a lesson on how to carry her Cubs now that would be great entertainment!! Kidding I always enjoy seeing your pictures!!

 

[gary_in_neenah]

Thanks for sharing, nice to see.

 

[chunk06]

Awesome pics

 

[mrbb]

well I agree bears make some interesting watching at times,( I also love watching minks and like family critters(wheels and otters they always seem to make everything they do look like a fun game)But bears sure also seem to be care less and free at times and curious, super curious(which is what gets many in trouble)
As I have seen them do some crazy unbelievable things over the yrs here. and its been a never ending learning lesson on what they can do, just had one open a carabiner clip to remove a hanging basket, 3 days ago? Nothing was in it and I have NO clue how they knew how to open that clip>> to remove it without damaging the weak strings that held basket to clip?
I am still baffled on that one to be honest!

Now, as for teaching her how to carry her cubs, if I knew how I would ,
I have been known to get hands on with bears over the yrs, so, that wouldnl;t be out of line for me
have helped raise many, done rehab on them,(have helped many recover from injuries and released them back into the wild, or helped raise orphans, last June I had a orphaned cub here , I helped make it thru its first yr and first winter, and he's doing pretty good now, roaming the locals woods, stops by now and then , but mostly all grown up and on his own now! which for me is very rewarding to see!
as he had a hard road being orphaned at such a young age!

I have crawled in a lot of dens with mothers and or just bears over the yrs!
I have helped trap em, tag em , relocated em and other ways of hands on handling them, so again, if I knew how to teach her to handle cub better I sure would LOL


a few yrs back I had a long time regular female bear with 3 cubs
that used to I swear come here with her 3 cubs and LEAVE them for me to baby sit them for her for hours at a time, just so she could get some alone time LOL

she would walk them up near my deck to a larger pine tree,, send them up a tree, and leave for 4-6 hours at a time!
leaving darn cubs with me and they would be sleeping up tree, some times hanging upside down by just one foot holding on to things,like monkeys
and be out cold, sleeping like rocks up there!
I used to always worry one was going to let go while sleeping and land on its head like a lawn dart from 15 -20 ft up!

but they never did
and then she would come back, call them down and leave!
it was pretty cool seeing that, and knowing she felt I wasn't any threat to her or the cubs!



I am very lucky to have what I have here with wildlife, and as so many others tell, to never have any damages or bad experiences with them all( they are on my deck often looking for a few seeds that birds drop from above high hanging feeders, and my grill is out there 24/7/365, and in all my decades here, I have never once had a bear go near the grill even, even if I am using it at the time they show up. I always joke and say I have well behaved bears, they learned to get along well with me here, I don;t damage them, they don;t damage my things, and glad its this way, I know many that have issue's so, know I am lucky!



I am up to 12 different bears here this yr I can track ID, I average about 20 different one's every yr, many are repeats regulars I call them, that make it many yrs, but always a few new one's every yr to replace those that get killed !(hunters, poachers, vehicles or??)

two males over 500, rest are smaller one's under 300 lbs
but do see them almost daily /nightly!
mating season soon coming so should see some new males shortly looking for love!

 

[jd]

Nice pics and cool stories. I would love to see your setup(s) for the bird feeders. There are several bears roaming our woods and, although we knew we had it coming, the bird feeder was removed from it's pole one night. I have a few ideas on how I want to set things up, but am looking for any and all ideas!

-John

P.S. Here is one idea I had.

 

[mrbb]

Nice pics and cool stories. I would love to see your setup(s) for the bird feeders. There are several bears roaming our woods and, although we knew we had it coming, the bird feeder was removed from it's pole one night. I have a few ideas on how I want to set things up, but am looking for any and all ideas!

-John

P.S. Here is one idea I had.

View attachment 61779

cool pic there, them pole set ups, tend IMO don;t work out very well, if you get a larger bear in it will just push the whole pole over, even smaller bears are VERY strong to do this as well


as for my set up, well the very best set up I have to date, has been using pulley's
I have an elevated deck(not very high just 5 ft or so off the ground)
but I have 4x4 post that hold up a roof over a portion of it, that is like 7 ft over the deck floor
I run a pulley from that post to a tree about a 100 ft away(actually have 3 of these set ups, using 3 different tree's and two different posts)
the feeders then end up about 50+ ft out from deck and due to slope of yard, the feeders end up hanging about 9 ft off the ground

I have a short rope tired to things so I can reach to pull in to me as 7 ft up some times with hands full is a tad tricky for me LOL

so while I am standing on deck to fill feeders, I just pull them in on pulley*think some what like a old fashion clothes line) and then pulley them back out from deck at what I feel is a safe distance, that above 99.9% of bears cannot reach and dor figure out the set up

I however , right NOW< have two female bears that KNOW how to defeat this, and there the ONLY two I have had defeat it in last 10 yrs

and there both related to each other, mother daughter
they will stand up grab rope, pull a ft or two inn, and repeat, but there also SO darn smart,m they know how to remove feeder, lay it on deck and eat seeds without damaging the feeders LOL

and theycan also tell when feeder has seed in it or is almost empty, and worth the effort to get it!!

the other bears all will stand under it and TRY every possible angle and way to reach it, at 9 ft up, they seem safe for me here, a few big males have came REALLY close, but so far just inches away and still safe!


on another set up I have , I also have tree';s closer to deck, and I added a boom that swings
it reaches out over deck and I have a pulley on that to lower it down to fill and I then pull back up, and tie off rope
think sort of like the car wash hose set up, where it spins from center of bay over head, and I just have a pulley at end to lower it
this way if a BEAR climbs tree, they cannot get to feeder, and when its hanging 10 ft above deck, all the can do is get droppings
and most so far have not figured out how its hanging up there
these two smart females, seem happy leaving it be too, but pretty sure if the really wanted they get it, there pretty talented bears!

if any of that makes sense or not, let me know can explain better
don;t have any pictures of things,

but here is one of the BIG males that comes close to things, its 9 ft to bottom of this feeder, I also only use small feeders, this way I fill in morning and by evenings most are all empty, so less temptation from bears to get to them
if this bear wasn;t so fat, and he could have hopped on one leg, he could have got it, and again its 9 ft to bottom of feeder, I measured after talking pic next morning LOL
and here is a pic of this bear, a smarty coon, and one of my bears checking out my truck

 

[xcr440]

I tried that hanging feeder on a rope thing, just too much of a pain to fill and as you have shown, the other critters find a way to it and end up destroying the set up I had anyway. I ended up just putting a flat board on a stump or a post and dumping bird seed on it every day, or after a bear comes through and cleans it off. Saved a lot of effort, and never bought/made another feeder.

 

[mrbb]

I tried that hanging feeder on a rope thing, just too much of a pain to fill and as you have shown, the other critters find a way to it and end up destroying the set up I had anyway. I ended up just putting a flat board on a stump or a post and dumping bird seed on it every day, or after a bear comes through and cleans it off. Saved a lot of effort, and never bought/made another feeder.

well I have not had a feeder broken since I went to the pulley system, and for me, its a fast easy set up and fill feeders
it also helps save me a lot of seeds, that chipmunks just carry off and bury
or squirrels getting in to them and hogging the seeds from the birds

so for m,e there a good set up, best I have had yet!

if you wanted to do a pole set up, you can always add some e fencing to things, and a solar battery charger

bears really dis like getting zapped, and will stop 99% of them, but every now and then there will be a very dumb or hungry one that will take the zaps LOL

 

[xcr440]

Ah yes - forgot about those red squirrels! I had a log cabin feeder for a few years that would hold an entire 50# bag of sunflower seeds.... I got real good again with my .22 rifle! They would just run back and forth taking seeds, and could empty that in just a couple days if I didn’t control their population.

 

[mrbb]

Ah yes - forgot about those red squirrels! I had a log cabin feeder for a few years that would hold an entire 50# bag of sunflower seeds.... I got real good again with my .22 rifle! They would just run back and forth taking seeds, and could empty that in just a couple days if I didn’t control their population.

yeah I am not too fond of red squirrels, they are way more aggressive than the grey one's here and they are way more likely top try and get inside your house, shed or??
and they will fill everything they can with crap, from seeds, to pine cones to??
I never shoot them, I just live trap them when numbers get higher than I want, and relocate them a few miles away
I found that if I let them loose less than 2 miles they come back(use food dye to mark them when letting them go, to track how far they return from)
past 4 months numbers were low, and this past week I swear about 20 new squirrels and chipmunks just showed up?
be trapping some later this week
there easy to lure into a live trap, with a shelled peanut or two!

and here's a few more pic;s from tonight for anyone that enjoys seeing them'

same female with single cub as above, she' passes thru my yard 2-3 times a day now on way to food plots below me

 

[snomoman]

Thanks for sharing those great photos, it’s real interesting to see all the bears that visit you and that you have them all personalized, we have some wildlife by us but no bears, I think the suburbanites would freak out LOL. We did see a mama and baby fox in the field next-door a few weeks back

 

[Grant Hoar]

I like the food coloring for chipmunks, but pink or orange is too obvious

If you spray paint them white then relocate them you can then follow the news about the new "albino" chipmunks showing up in PA!

 

[jd]

Thanks for the stories and tips!

Hope to get the new feeder setup going this week.

-John

 

[mrbb]

I like the food coloring for chipmunks, but pink or orange is too obvious

If you spray paint them white then relocate them you can then follow the news about the new "albino" chipmunks showing up in PA!

I like orange and green, I think it helps them be more camo like then and he's me ID them when moving, but I only did that to find out how far I had to take them, once I figured out 2 miles, I go 3 now and be safe!

a funny story, or??
last yr I had a skunk show up here that was almost all pink where it would normally be white, so was black and Pink, and more pink that black, I watched it for a full yr, as at first I thought maybe it got something on it to make it that color, or blood or??

but the whole summer fall and winter, it was still pink, as last yr we set a record for rain falls, so, anything on it should have washed off!

SO< mother nature can create some funny colars all on its own!


here the local TV news, LOVE It when they find a bear up a tree, and it happens pretty often, in smaller towns
the bear goes up;a tree due to getting scared, a ton of folks gather around tree to take pic's and video's
and then start to complain about the POOR bear doesn;'t know how to get down, then TV crew shows up even MORE people , all yapping about bear is NOW stuck in tree!
they then call in game warden to shoot it with a tranquilizer dart,
bears falls 20-40 ft out of tre onto concrete roadway or pavement, bounces like a rick dropped form that height, and then they say, BEARS OS OK< that DOESN"T hurt them at all(love to know how they figure that out!, love to see then fall from that height and say all is FINE , bunch of morons out there ??LOL)

a wardens and volunteers carry bear off into a cage trap, like its a honor they get to do so

when all the while, if the idiots would just leave the bear would climb down when NO one is there, bear STAYS UP the tree due to humans at the bottom of tree and all over

and in all the yrs here seeing this happen dozens of times a yr here
I have never seen anyone , say this?

they all would rater get pictures and video's and make a big show out of things
than just leave the poor bear alone to come down

OH well, that's life, I guess??

 

[WorkHardPlayHrd]

Talking about coloring things my son's decided to have fun two summers ago. We have a beautiful long haired black female cat. They took a can of white spray paint and put a line from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. She hangs out on the front porch. We had a particularly annoying insurance salesman that year. He comes and bangs on the door. As he stands there and I answer it the cat starts to rub on his pants. He tells me that I should teach my animals not to bother people. I said "O Really", and looked down. He then looks down and then let's loose this unearthly scream. She runs one way, he goes the other way and almost gets hit backing out of my driveway. He never came back. I forgave the boys for painting the cat.

 

[mrbb]

Talking about coloring things my son's decided to have fun two summers ago. We have a beautiful long haired black female cat. They took a can of white spray paint and put a line from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. She hangs out on the front porch. We had a particularly annoying insurance salesman that year. He comes and bangs on the door. As he stands there and I answer it the cat starts to rub on his pants. He tells me that I should teach my animals not to bother people. I said "O Really", and looked down. He then looks down and then let's loose this unearthly scream. She runs one way, he goes the other way and almost gets hit backing out of my driveway. He never came back. I forgave the boys for painting the cat.

I had a friend from when was alittle kid till he passed away a yr ago, that always used to have a skunk or two as pets, he would get them de skunked, so they couldn;t spray
he used to tell me they were great pets and made the best watch dogs out there as NO one would see them coming and when they did, they always took off LOL

I have seen bears chase them here, a few times even get sprayed, mostly young bears that don't know no better then learn

but the bravest or dumbest critter here IMO are raccoons
I have witnessed then countless time, removing skunks from my yard, they will run up to them, shove there NOSE right under there butt hole, and lift there rear legs off the ground and carry them out of my yard
its insane to witness, and talk about staring trouble in the eye , and of the 10-15 times I seen this, NOT once did the skunk spray them, almost as if they didn;t want to mess with the coons, as they seem a little crazy, NO fear in them at all, seem them steal food out of a bears mouth before
there wacky critters and they have a lot of smarts to learn how to defeat things too, so brave of crazy, ?? they hit the top of my list on critters with no fear for me!

 

[mrbb]

just checked one of my trail cams(this is in my back yard too)
so here are a few more bear pic;'s or you's as I gather mnost folks don't get to see them as I do!

even got the one mother man handling her cub in a pic!, she just grabs it where ever, poor little guy, just stuck taking the pain LOL

 

[mrbb]

and a couple more to show different sizes and a few deer too, get lots of deer here all the time too, as a fact they will scare OFF the bears and not the other way, too many deer make bears nervous!