Carol Lessans seemed out the window above her kitchen sink Tuesday morning and was shocked: As she watched, a black bear walked via her Silver Spring yard, lay down and ate seeds from her chicken feeder.
Maryland
Bear caught on video in Silver Spring yard stealing food from birds
“We have been like, ‘Oh my god,’ ” Lessans mentioned.
She reached for her cellphone and recorded a brief video of the bear that she later posted to Fb. “Now we have a bear in our yard!!!!” she wrote.
Wildlife consultants at Maryland’s Division of Pure Assets noticed the video and mentioned they consider the bear was a male about 1½ years previous and weighing between 100 and 200 kilos.
It’s “uncommon however not unprecedented” to see a black bear in a D.C. suburb, mentioned Brian Eyler, the sport mammal part chief for the Maryland DNR, and that is the time of 12 months when younger male bears are venturing out and searching for their very own territory. There have been a number of experiences of black bear sightings within the Silver Spring space in June 2016.
On Tuesday, Lessans mentioned, she and her husband tried to get a greater view of the bear from their screened-in porch, however when her husband made a noise, the bear fled. Hours later, despite the fact that she mentioned she had seen a earlier submit a couple of bear sighting farther north in Montgomery County, she may scarcely consider it.
“I knew in regards to the sightings,” Lessans mentioned, “and also you see them on Fb, however you assume, ‘Oh, they could possibly be out of the country.’ ”
However, in hindsight, there have been indicators. The couple’s yard chicken feeder had been damaged earlier this week in a “unusual manner,” mentioned Lessans, who works as an artist. “It wasn’t because it if had fallen over and damaged. It was open like one other being may have finished it.”
The couple joked that perhaps a bear had knocked it over however didn’t assume an excessive amount of of it. Her husband obtained a brand new feeder and put it up.
Then, round 7 a.m. Tuesday, she noticed the black bear consuming from it.
Lessans mentioned she referred to as native wildlife authorities however obtained disconnected as she was being transferred. Maryland DNR officers confirmed they obtained a report Tuesday of a bear sighting within the Silver Spring space.
Eyler mentioned the bear in Lessans’s yard in all probability got here from a less-dense space to the extra city space of Silver Spring through parklands and greenways. His division lately had a report of a black bear sighting in Howard County, he mentioned, and “this might probably be the identical bear,” though he cautioned there was no approach to know.
“We don’t get them contained in the Beltway as usually,” Eyler mentioned.
In 2014, a younger black bear captured regional consideration when it took officers three hours to scare it out of a tree on the grounds of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being campus, close to the Medical Middle Metro cease in Bethesda. It was tranquilized and relocated to western Montgomery County. The 12 months earlier than, a younger black bear was relocated after it was sedated and caught in Northwest D.C.’s Palisades neighborhood.
Black bears are native to the D.C. area, and officers mentioned there’s a wholesome inhabitants of about 2,000, principally in western Maryland however slowly increasing outward. Within the spring and early summer season, younger males are normally “dispersing and looking for their very own territory,” Eyler mentioned. Consider them, he mentioned, “as youngsters looking for their manner.”
Officers suggested the general public to take away any gadgets that might appeal to black bears, together with rubbish, chicken feeders and grills with grease.
Another recommendation, maybe, went with out saying.
“I simply wished to exit and provides it a giant, previous hug,” Lessans mentioned of the bear she encountered Tuesday. “It seemed so lovely. However I wouldn’t try this. I’m not loopy.”