OT
 

Sure would like to understand how that @#%& black bear can reach well over 7' high and tear down my sunflower feeders :mad:

Have a 12' 4x4 set, put two sections of 5" heat pipe around it so he can't climb the pole, then added an additional 6' of 4x4. Drilled 1" holes through the top, then slid 8' pieces of pipe through and centered them. At the ends of the pipe, I drilled holes to attach small pulleys to use a rope system to raise and lower them. I have to stand in the back of the Gator just to reach the ropes to lower them.
This morning, both feeders down............

Maybe a cat? They can jump pretty high.

Bet its this same boar. He was a youngster 3 years ago.

Grease the pipe.

He can't climb the pipe. He tries but can't. Evidently I had the feeders to low............ which has been corrected.

Charge or electrify the pipe.......I can keep bears out of my bee hives with a 5 strand hot fence.

But they are ingenious. They pulled down my feeder too which is up 18 ft off the ground. He crawled the tree and pulled out one pulley end. So I electrified the tree.....
JW

You're lucky its only your feeders. We have a couple here in our village which is separated by a highway. On one side is a small bear (150-200) that likes to roam the streets at night. But on the other side there is one that is estimated 450-600 lb that ripped open the guy's garage door - actually ripped it apart, grabbed the garbage can and drug it 50 yards into the woods. My cousin almost hit him with his Ford Escape two nights ago.

That woulda been one messed up Ford. Bear would have been dinged up a smidge too and probably on the angry side of the scale :D

Barnes, Bears are a VERY ingenious mammal. Some say they are even smarter than Hogs. Get you a Marine battery and electrify your post. That will cure any and all problems. If it will keep them outta bee hives it will surely stop them from Sunflower raids :D

Someone's home most of the time and certainly at night here. He tries breaking into the house or garage here, it'll be his very last mistake. I'll bust his ask with the 12ga and slug.
A guy just shot one this week that attacked his dog. DNR stated it was the same bear that mauled someone last summer (Somehow they knew). Won't tolerate him breaking in.

The top black tape around the metal is 6' off the ground. The feeders were higher. The pulley system is on the post itself and I have to stand in the back of the Gator to reach the ropes to lower the feeders. The photo above shows him trying to climb, but he can't climb that metal. Its obvious I "thought" I had them high enough. This time they'll be 10' in the air.

I'm envisioning them brainstorming and one standing on the others shoulders :D

Bears are definitely creative. If they can get it, they will.

The area I live in Northern Wisconsin is known as the "Black Bear Capitol of the World." Its how we advertise the area still. The area used to boast as having the largest black bear population per square mile anywhere in the United States. Although I think Pennsylvania has now took that title. We also are known for a record size black bear killed 3 miles out of town. Field dressed it was 689 pounds. I think that too has now been beat. But ... we have a lot of bears around here. At the DNR office there is a 543 pound bear, fully body mounted. That thing is huge!!!

When I purchased the place, no one told me about the bear situation. So in my back yard was a "flower pot stand"



That first lock ring is six feet. So since I was not a flower person, I hung bird feeders off some of the hooks. In the morning, I found every hook that has a feeder, TORE from the main stem. You can see the four of them still hanging from the other hooks. Needless to say, no feeding the birds on my property.

Bear used to be an almost daily sighting on the place. They would cross the back field through the woods, sometimes come up near the house...



This used to be all too common in the yard. Bears walking in, just checking me out. They've stolen my feed barrel that was chained to a tree. They came on the porch and took the recycle barrel and carried it out into the yard until I screamed at them and they run off. And the worst was coming out of the garage one night, and I flipped on the yard light so I could see to the house, and there was a bear sitting by the back door.

I can feel your pain. And if he found food there once, they will be back. So you might as well pull your feeders.

I suspect they dragged a trampoline over from a neighbor's yard.

I repaired the feeders and they're up there 10' now. He may come back thinking it will be easy but, he can't climb that pole. Game camera is out too.

I'm just thinking, but I'll throw this out there: How far is the tree from the center pipe?
Now, how far is the tree from the small, unseen, backside pipe?
Is that pipe long enough and close enough to the tree that the bear could climb the tree to reach out and grab the feeder? If the bear can reach the small pipe, could he place weight on the small pipe and cause the rest of the 4x4 section with feeders to fall to the ground, thereby feasting again? Hopefully, my thoughts amount to nothing. Then, again.......

There's more than enough room between the trees and the pipes that the feeders hang from. Placed it that way to keep the squirrels from jumping to it. He'll be back and look things over and I'll get his photo when he does.

Glad to hear that blacky will have to find dinner elsewhere. Will also be looking forward to those bear pics

THEY showed up again last night. It appears its a sow and an older cub? The black tape rings on the post are at 3' and 6' Try as they did, the feeders are still hanging this morning.

Bears 1............. Me 1







Although it tried, it couldn't climb the piping. About all it could do was get a grip on it and hold in place for a short.

they are determined little buggers. If you have an old peanut butter jar, hang that high in a tree. It drives them crazy.

Maybe around here they will think winter's back and go back to bed. It was cold in the house this morning so I got up to throw a few chunks of wood in the stove (needed it bad last night ... the house was really cold). Looked out the window and there was a half inch of new snow on the ground. Checked the thermometer and it said 29ºs. At least the gnats and mosquitoes got a surprise. They were getting thick already.

So, by the looks of things, you had perhaps 4-5 unsatisfied bears. Unless the 3 in the background didn't come in.

Actually the 3 in the background are made of plywood and paint :)

Current score after last night:

Bear........2 Me...........2

I plan on winning the next round.

New 50 MILE charger and only 25' of wire.
I'm going to set his hair on fire :)

ok guys I think you all are trying to prevent mother natures instinct here, a bear is just trying to eat , its drawn to your feeders by its nose, it cannot help itself
they need 20,000 calories a day to live, seeds in a container help them add calories faster
anyone that shoots a bear due to bird feeders is taking things to the extreme, as your the one causing the bears to show up, a bird feeder to them looks like a bear feeder to them??
don't want bears don't have feeders?
or don't live where bears are?? its part of life when you have them??


I have feeders too, and LOTS of bears
my feeders are now up HIGH 14+ ft, I ran lined between tree's and up off the top of my deck
to date (several yrs now) I have only ONE bear that has figured out my pulley system
a female, she will climb up my deck, and on her hind legs can JUST barely reach the ropes, and will get a tooth on it, drag it DOWN< then grab with paw, and pull about 2 ft before she runs out of room, takes her about 30 minutes to get the feeder to her mouth
BUT there is NEVER any sees left in the feeder by dark, I run SMALL feeders, fill in the AM< empty by dark
she has never damaged a feeder yet either, a LOT of work for nothing , I get a kick out of watching her do this, about 2-3 times a week LOL
I can always tell she's been here, as she is the only one to do this,
had 9 different bears this spring here, that I could tell apart, either size or tags

here is a honest 600 lb male

and a 350 lb female

the big male has been courting this female for the past 3+ weeks now, she's been playing hard to get I think, she lost about 50-+80 lbs in the past 3 weeks too, staying a head of him!
I ran his tag info, this how I know his weight, and she's been a rather regular here about 10+ yrs now and few litters of cubs, ran 2015's cubs off to hook up with this male



moma side view






V




V's front feet




both








and just for giggles
I seen this a while back
so never underestimate the will and desire of a wild animal LOL

i set up a rig like yours with a hot wire and ground to keep the coons out of a tree that had a feeder. Coons were climbing down the cable that held the feeder. That charger killed coons DRT.

I solved my problems by taking down the feeders. The birds really don't need our feed. Its just we like to watch them. Also you don't want to get bears interested in your yard and house. Or a nasty surprise can happen. Like them coming on the front porch and looking in the kitchen window. (gas barbecue grill on the porch and the recycle barrel).

Wild animals can be a real PITA but then, I moved into their back yard. Not the other way around. That hot wire should work good. It will be interesting to see how they act around it. I had a friend that put electric fences around his garden one year to keep the animals out.

My system IS a pulley system. They can't reach the feeders. Except this last bear, who evidently has figured a way past that metal piping and is climbing it.

He touches that wire and it'll set him on fire........

Might be like that bear that John Candy shot in the Great Outdoors! :D

I have bears - lots of them. Only had my elevated cable bird feeder system tore down once in the 6 yrs there. I fixed that.
And I have honey bees - total of 4 bee hives. That has been kept safe by a 5 strand hot fence. Works just fine. First strand of wire is 4 to 5 inches off the ground. Keeps the coons and skunks out. And one can tell when a skunk was there and got zapped.....

So far so good. And I have pictures of bears standing at the fence looking in. So far so good.

JW

The guys with bee hives in the area also fence them. Its the only way. When we first bought the property, there was an area that just needed cleaning up and I put a small orchard in. To keep the trees safe from deer, I fenced the whole area, just about an acre. I went 8' high and started 5" off the ground. Every wire was hot until it got to 5', then every other was a ground. All wires 8" apart. It worked REAL GOOD and no problems with the trees.
When the trees were large enough to make it without the fence, I remove it and gave all the wire away to a friends boy, who for 4H was raising calves. He had a charger so I sold mine in a garage sale. Yup, I needed it and had to buy new, again.

Bear hasn't been back, but if he does, the game camera might catch the "moment" LOL

:biggrin:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pdM9YOYrcbs

That is exactly why my power comes down from above. ;)

When I was working in Breckenridge Co, we had an old sow that learned how to roll up garage doors to the dumpster enclosures. She would sit down in front of the door and use her paws to roll it up. Waste Management drivers were too lazy to slide the latch bolts. There was an old boar that would just reach under regular swinging doors and break the door to get in. G & F would live trap them, ear tag them and move them a 100 miles and let them loose. In 2-3 days they were back home.

Sometimes not even second thoughts



And then again while no damage was recoreded I don't know how this little guy got in and out with out busting a wire! <:



But that was the only time I got a picture like this and so far no damage in 7 yrs. But from this occurance I have since changed the wire to a far heavier gauge. I have fried ground squirrels who just quite could not make the jump over the 5" first wire off the ground. And now my top wire a new one is a dummy wire as I got tired of seeing fried hummingbirds.

JW

It's pretty obvious. He sat back in the woods and watched you flip the switch on the system a few times and thought, "Hey, I can do that."

I find great amusement in this battle. The bears desire for a snack is powerful.

Well I....... had....... it on a dusk to dawn timer. So it shut off during the day. Now comes along the black squirrels. So one decides he can jump just high enough on that piping, to grab those wires and climb up to the feeders.
So............ out I go with a ground rod, short piece of wire and ground that metal pipe real good. Took the timer off and plugged it into the house.

NOW........... what happened next is amusement :barmy:

pour some sweets 7.62 onto a cloth and hang small sections around that area.