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Several weeks ago, I got up in the morning to find one of the wife's Shepard Hook flower pot holders bent in a mess. I knew who the culprit was. A bear. I staightened it out, re-attached it to our back deck, and forgot about it. We have "visitors" to our yard quite often. I have watched a racoon drinking the nectar from one of the hummingbird feeders before, too. So it was no surprise to me when I flipped the deck light on around 1:30 A.M. the other night, and saw a hummingbird feeder swinging back and forth. Windy out, I thought. I opened the deck door, and found no wind. What I DID find was a very large black bear at the edge of the deck, about 15 ft. from me, and soley occupied with the removal of a Finch feeder. I yelled at it. Nothing. Paid no attention to me at all. I slammed the door several times. Nothing. It stood up. It was huge. My yellow Lab, Moses, wanted a piece of it. I got him into the basement, and went to check the situation. Gone. Finch feeder and all. I opened the door cautiously, and could hear it crunching the plastic feeder in the woods at the edge of the yard. I found it he next morning, smashed to pieces.
This is certainly not our first experience with bears here, but it does reinforce the point that they are definitely attracted to bird seed, and if you want to be spared replacemaent costs, take them in at night.
Sometime I'll tell you about apples for applesauce left out on the deck overnight............

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Here when they fisrt come out of hibernation they will go to bird feeders or just about anything that they can have for dinner. Once they green growth starts growing they appear to move back to the fields. But whenever garbage and the like is left around in bear country they will come back after it. Si if you do not want them around keep the place picked up and stop feeding the birds for a little while and they will leave looking elsewhere.

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It is always exciting to see a bear . A few years ago 3 of us were up in Clinton County at camp and I got up early one morning to go out to the outhouse and opened the door and saw a black bear eating out corn on the cob.. It was in Sept and I had just got home from bear hunting in Maine and went up to camp for a work detail. One of the members was a livestock auctioneer and said that bear was probably about 450 lbs. After a bit he wandered off over the creek and I took a tape and measured , he was 21 ft from the door.....

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Yeah Ihave a big raccoon that comes in and cleans out the bird feeders.

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Yeah I have seen the raccoons do the same thing and I hate them little critters. Probally because the house next door no one lives in and is full of those nasty varmits. They try to get in my pheasant pen, run all over town, get into garbage, and I have ven seen them on my eves. I would love to see that old house torn down.

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you guys need to put on some judo heads an show those coons whos boss.....:)

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I would like to but I can't shoot or trap them in town. I thought about using a live trap but I know with all those house cats running around there isn't much I can do.

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Bait the racoon traps with marshmellows instead of fish. Cats don't usually go for sweets. Mite catch possums though