General Bear Knowledge.
Just a small posting to alert everyone about bears. Everyone want to see them and get photos. Someone said “bears can be dangerous but” in a post. A hungry bear is the most dangerous thing you can encounter in North Carolina. They can be anywhere from 150 pounds to over 600 pounds. The size of the bear is very deceiving as they look small until they get mad.
A bear needs 5,000 to 20,000 calories a day. In the spring they consume 5,000 a day but, in the fall, they require
20,000 calories!! So, they would need between 2 and 10 pounds of birdseed a day PER BEAR. If they are eating bird seed, it is because they are hungry! The problem is the bear will begin to associate back yards with food. Encounters with humans become associated with food. Then bears loses its fear of humans…. that is when things get dangerous!!! When this happens in National Parks, they must kill the bear to prevent attacks on humans (more often with brown than black bears).
Also, dogs and bears do not mix well. The information below is from the US National Park Service used in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They are referring to black bears not Grizzly or Brown. The same bears in the western part of the state are the exact same species we have here. Bears are the real deal. The less we interact or try to see them will decrease the threat to us and the bear. A 400-pound angry animal, that eats meat, charging at you at 35 miles per hour is bad news.
The solution to our problem is changing OUR behavior not the bear’s behavior.
