HANSON – Evidently the lesson from the old Yogi Bear cartoons has failed to take hold: Do not feed the bears. That also means do not accidentally feed the bears.
In recent weeks black bears – maybe one, maybe more, it’s hard to tell, really – have been eating their way around the backyards of Hanson, Pembroke and environs.
A bear ate a pygmy goat recently. They have also made meals of domestic ducks and chickens in Chelmsford. A bear had to be tranquilized in Brookline recently – not all bears that come into contact with humans are as lucky.
Mass Wildlife said a bear also made its way across the Cape Cod Canal and made its way to Provincetown.
“You could literally trace the movement of that bear by the 911 calls to local police departments. People had never seen one before and they panicked over it,” said Mass Fisheries and Wildlife District Director William Davis of the Cape Cod bear.
Just because a bear is in your area, does not mean it is a threat, Black Bear Project Leader Laura Hajduc-Conlee said, noting there has never been a bear attack in Massachusetts, even though there have been fatal attacks in the Northeast. In fact, Mass Wildlife says most of the Bay State is Bear Country.
Black bears are omnivorous, and they try to increase their calorie intake in the fall to prepare for winter, but they will take advantage of easy food sources any time of year.
“They eat small mammals,” said Hanson Police Chief Michael Miksch, whose department has posted information about the dangers of inadvertently attracting bears, along with links to Mass Wildlife’s black bear page. “It was chasing two goats around a yard yesterday in Pembroke.”
The Hanson Police Department is emphasizing that owners of small domestic animals should take measures, against foraging predators.
“My goal is to get people to start educating themselves,” Miksch said, noting people have been asking why public safety and wildlife officers don’t just tranquilize bears and move them. “It or another one’s going to come back … and, if you keep feeding them, you’re feeding them accidentally by leaving trash out, or feeding them on purpose, because you think it’s cute, then they’re going to lose their fear of humans and we have to put them down.”
Bears will be euthanized when they become a perceived public safety threat, according to Mass Wildlife.
Keeping backyard food sources away from bears also helps to keep them wild, according to Mass. Wildlife. Bear populations are also increasing. In the 1970s, there were about 100 bears in Massachusetts, which grew to about 1,000 by the 1990s – and it’s estimated that there are about 4,000 in the state today – the third most densely-populated state in the country.
“Bears are remarkable in their ability to remember,” Davis said. During the year cubs stay with their mother, she is showing the cubs where to find seasonal food sources and places where people continuously feed bears.
Bringing in bird feeders; making sure trash is in secure outbuildings and never just in a bag or bin, where bears can get to it; and securing beehives or chicken coops with electrified fencing is important.
“We’re not going to change the bears’ behavior, but we can change the public’s behavior and how they respond to bears being in their community,” Davis said. “It’s very gratifying to us to see people learning how to coexist with bears.”
Bears climb trees to escape from people, who are advised to back away from a tree and leave them alone, until they climb down and leave the area.
“It’s really important to modify your behavior so that we can avoid conflict with black Bears,” Hajduc-Conlee said.