There is a bear in there

Well I didn't see the black bear but I saw it's poo - and it was rather bigger than Winnie the Pooh's and ought to be called scat not poo I was informed. The bear was having a fine time at the temple getting into the bird feeders. (Upon inspection the contents of the poo seemed in equal measure bird seed).

This bear  also quite liked the rubbish bins (translation - 'trash cans'). Here's a picture of post-bear trash - and after the bear came the foxes and after the foxes came the turkey vultures...

There were various night sightings of the bear by others and in the end we had to lock up the 'trash' and the bird seed and remove all the bird feeders.

A Maryland bear expert thought perhaps it was a young (year old) male black bear. I read about their behaviour (Bear primer 1 Bear Primer 2) which it turns out is very similar to racoons who are also part of the bear family apparently. One mans aid that that black bears were very intelligent and shy of humans. Well he was intelligent. He ran rings around us for a while. And I know he ran the other way when startled by humans.In one such encounter he frightened the dickens out of a Nun walking her pooch on the porch. They (the nun with her pooch) and the bear quickly beat a retreat from one another.

My very limited knowledge of any kind of bear (including koala bears) didn't prepare me for what happened next which involved clearing vegetation to make way for an electric fence which did deter the bear it seems. And perhaps the lack of rubbish and bird seed was another big factor and then there were the ammonia filled balloons - perfectly safe but another deterrent.

When clearing the fence I was trying to avoid sun burn - turns out it's good protection against poison ivy. Here I am with comrades.

So where is the bear now? Has he found a more stable food source far from humans - perhaps not. Will he make annual pilgrimages to the Buddhist Temple and will he have a long life? I don't know. My wish is that he finds a safe home in the forest with other furry friends. But where humans and animals coincide who knows?