Black bear chance encounters happen more during June in Pennsylvania. Here's why
If there’s a time of the year when you may see a black bear where you don’t expect them, it’s this month.
“Compared to years ago, there’s a greater chance for residents in more of the state to see a bear than there’s ever been. With that, there’s a great chance to have problems with bears,” said Travis Lau, communications director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
June is a transitional month for many black bears and Pennsylvania has an estimated 18,000 of them walking on the landscape. Last fall, hunters shot 2,920 bears in Pennsylvania, including at least one in 58 of the state’s 67 counties.
“The peak time for bear activity always centers around the peak of their breeding season, which is typically in the third week of June,” Lau said.
In addition to the adults looking for new mates, the yearling cubs are kicked out by their mothers to look for a new territory.
“Aside from the breeding with bears, it’s the dispersal of juvenile bears. Moms kick the cubs out, he said. "That accounts for probably a large portion of the bear sightings in areas that aren’t what we would consider to be bear country. When you get those news reports that stem from just the sighting of a bear somewhere where bears don’t frequent, more times than not it’s a cub that’s dispersing."
The young bears are looking for new places to live as part of nature’s way of diversifying their genetics.
“There’s just a lot more movement in general,” Lau said about bears in June.
April Whitsell, state game warden in southern Cambria and northern Somerset counties, agreed this is usually a busy time of the year for black bears.
“Springtime is the time where they really start to wake up and they are looking for an easy meal to put the weight back on that they burned off all winter,” she said.
“They are looking for bird feeders, garbage and stuff like that with easy access. We get a lot of complaints in suburban areas,” she said. “Bears see that as an easy opportunity. They wander through, they get a nice meal and they leave a little bit of destruction in their path sometimes."
For the most part, the nature of the damage is usually minor with bird feeders being torn down or barbecues being turned over.
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Hiking and bears
For those spending time in the woods, it’s important for bears to hear or see when humans are around.
“Bears don’t like to be taken by surprise," Lau said. "If you were to walk up on a bear, let that bear know you are there — a whistle, say a few words."
People are to remain as calm as possible and do what they can to allow the bear an opportunity to walk off and escape the encounter.
“Don’t act in a way that’s going to make the bear have the potential to see you as a threat,” he said.
In addition, don’t run away or climb a tree because the bear may give chase.
If a mother bear hears you walking toward her, she may send her cubs up a tree to wait for you to pass.
Suggestions for homeowners
If you are aware of a bear in your area, Lau said there are a few things residents can do to reduce the chances of a bear visiting their lawn.
Some suggestions include keeping your garbage cans indoors until shortly before trash pick up, not keeping pet food outside where bears may find it, keeping barbecue grills in a safe place, and taking bird feeders indoors at night.
“June is the time where you’re going to see more what we term to be nuisance activity that largely revolves around bears finding food on your property," Lau said. "The peak time is yet to come, but for some folks, they are already experiencing or already have experienced that."
While it’s not common to see a bear in a residential area, it can happen and homeowners may want to be proactive with removing anything that may entice a bear to visit.
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“It all depends on your situation, I think for even folks who aren’t expecting to see bears around their home in the coming months or any time, there is a chance that a roving bear will come through," he said. "If there’s a bird feeder there they will rip it down to eat the bird seed, find other food around before moving on.”
The damage is not limited to property. Bears can hurt people, too.
In March, a Butler County woman taking her dog out one evening surprised a bear with cubs that were at her bird feeder. The woman was bitten by the mother bear when she tried to get her dog back in the house.
Fortunately, the woman survived the ordeal. The bear was euthanized and the cubs were relocated.
“There’s a long list of reasons to keep bears from your property,' Lau said. "Generally, when they get too close to homes, it’s when trouble occurs, whether that be some kind of property damage or the bear attacks that we sometimes see."
Reporting bear sightings
Many times bears are just wandering through a neighborhood and will keep on moving until they find a quiet place to live.
“When you’re dealing with a bear that’s just passing through, it doesn’t necessarily represent any threat," Lau said. "I think that with bears in general, they are to be respected, they are strong and fast animals. You don’t want one in your backyard.”
Bears show up in many of the same parts of the state each year, but they can also appear in new places as well.
“You have your strongholds for bear populations that have long been strongholds in northcentral Pennsylvania where you are dealing with a lot of areas that don’t have a lot of year-around residents," Lau said. "The Poconos is always ground zero for human-bear interactions because you have a large population of people and a large population of bears. Traditionally, some of the biggest bears in the state are out that way."
They also receive reports of bears in places where the agency doesn’t normally see bears.
“We’ve had a couple in recent years in southeastern Pennsylvania and in Philadelphia County where we’ve had bears. It was like every new neighborhood the bear went into, it was news in that neighborhood,” he said.
In residential areas where bears are found in a tree, a Game Commission official will respond to assess the situation. Whitsell said, “A lot of times if we can just give them space, to let them leave the area, to keep the mom and the cubs together, that’s really what we try to do and minimize the attractants that bring them there in the first place.”
In other situations, the warden can tranquilize the bruin and move it to a wilderness area.
Bears can be relocated for other reasons as well.
Lau said, “If a bear is causing property damage, scratching at your door, scratching at your window, coming back repeatedly, that’s something that you would want to call the Game Commission about. Especially in a neighborhood setting, you’re probably not the only one having that problem and it probably is a bear that would benefit much by being removed and taken to a more remote area.”
Right now, Whitsell is monitoring a bear in Richland that has mange. “I’ve been trying to keep tabs on it, set traps when I can to try to catch it,” she said. “We have a lot of nuisance bears that are just coming through looking for food."
The agency has live traps constructed from large culvert piping that can be used to catch bears and release them back into wilderness areas.
“With as many complaints as we get, I cannot physically trap all the bears,” she said about her region. “I first tell people to minimize the food sources and then if it’s still coming around and still being a problem, we can assess the situation and go from there.
“Usually, if I have more severe situations like a bear is getting into a chicken coop and actually killing chickens, I’m going to prioritize that a little more than a broken bird feeder."
When in doubt, call the Game Commission at 833-PGC-Wild where a dispatcher is available 24 hours a day. The agency’s dispatchers are able to assess the situation and determine if there’s a problem for a game warden to visit.
Visit bearwise.org or pgc.pa.gov for additional resources about black bears.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at [email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: How do I keep bears away from my home?
