Increased Bear Activity

It's that time of year. I've seen bears in my field three times in the last week; they're probably after berries or apples. Shorter days and cooling temps are bringing them in closer for food. WMNF also has noted more bear activity in the Great Gulf:

"The bears are back in town! There have recently been a number of bear-related incidents in the Great Gulf Wilderness. You must store all food, toiletries, and food containers properly when camping. Food should be hung from a tree limb that will not support a bear -- ten feet up and five feet out."

There's nothing you can hang that a bear can't get to, trust me; we've had bears that go out on limbs ten feet up and five feet out after bird feeders, break the limbs off, crash to the ground, and happily eat the goodies there. The general idea is to get the goodies away from your tent site and think about plan b in case you just lost all your food for the trip. Bear canisters sound like a good idea to me provided you don't encounter Yellow-Yellow!

Thanks for the heads-up. I saw my first-ever bear while on a hike in July in the Adirondacks. Moving swiftly off the trail.

This isn’t cub season, is it? Or is it?

Cubs of this year are with Mom through this coming winter. Then some time next summer she'll shove them away when she approaches estrus. (Brown/grizzly families will stay together longer, usually through the third winter (counting the natal winter) and sometimes longer.) 'Tis a traumatic rite of passage and often gives rise to episodes of roaming young "hooligan" bears looking for easy pickins.

EDIT: Mebbe you meant to ask whether they're being born now? If so, no, that happens in the den during the winter.

I was mostly worrying about the likelihood of accidentally coming between mother and child.

Grandpa

Marley and I came across the BIGGEST bear we have seen yet! I saw a bear out on the snowmobile trail on Tudeau road in Bethlehem. Granted he was out by the town dump where the food (if you call it that) is plentiful. This bear would have to stand in the neighborhood of 7'. I have never seen a bear that big in NH!
I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked if the bear had brown on his nose. I told him I only got the rear and side view so I could not verify the brown on his nose. He told me it sounds like Grandpa (a name given to a large bear w/brown on the nose). It seems this bear has been around for a while and has had many siblings.

Siblings? Or progeny?

This fits well with the recent "bee invasion" thread. I've never seen so many ground wasp nests torn up by bears as I have this summer. The bears have also been going after the squaw root (Conopholis americana) that has been doing better than usual this summer. Don't they know it's on the state threatened species list? That's one good thing about a very wet summer: it's added new twists to the wonders of the woods. Mushroom, anyone?

bandana4me said:

Marley and I came across the BIGGEST bear we have seen yet! I saw a bear out on the snowmobile trail on Tudeau road in Bethlehem. Granted he was out by the town dump where the food (if you call it that) is plentiful. This bear would have to stand in the neighborhood of 7'. I have never seen a bear that big in NH!

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State record weight for NH is around 500 pounds, if I recall correctly. Bears over 600 have been taken in ME and VT. A VT bear biologist was quoted several years ago describing the skull of a 225 pound boar. It had bear canine marks on both sides -- from opposing teeth. Some more info on size is at Size of the Black Bear.

At initial glimpsing, i thought the thread was about Increased Beer Activity. i am a bit let down, but nonetheless enjoyed this informative thread.

I didn't see him standing

The person who told me his name was Grandpa, saw him at a dumpster that was over 6' high and he said Grandpa's head was over the top of the dumpster!

I damn near hit a cub in Tamworth end of august - was travelling through some dirt roads in the Cleveland Hill area and hadda lock'em up to avoid collision and worse, if mom was following, didn't want mom to destroy the car!

F-Face said:

I damn near hit a cub in Tamworth... ...in the Cleveland Hill area...

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That's Jacky's younger brother you almost hit. I'm glad you missed him. The family's been having a hard time lately. I think the mother drinks. Ben Kilham had to take Jacky and last I heard, he's somewhere up in Waumbek's neighborhood, wearing a radio collar (he's on bear probation).