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SUNNY Temp: 55 °F Wind: WNW at 5 mph Sunday, August 4, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Cyberchef E The People Golf Job Network Headbone Zone Wellness Connection Movie Times Newspaper in Education Oregon CarZone Outdoor Journal Personals Prime Times Real Estate Tempo A & E TV Times W3 Magazine CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Destinations Automotive Communities Employment Entertainment Publications Real Estate Recreation Shopping Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Jobs @ Mail Tribune Email Story to a Friend July 22, 2002 Bears find locals’ garbage tasty Residents should take precautions to discourage animals from starting bad habit By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune HUGO — All it took was one trip through Ruth and Richard Stemple’s garbage cans in 1997 to convince a pesky black bear to make their Hugo home a regular stop on its forest forays for food. The bear tried breaking into their garage to get the family’s cat food, clawed the pump house after water, and burglarized a shed for garbage repeatedly over the ensuing four years. "That son of a gun caused us nothing but trouble," said Richard Stemple, 73. But it wasn’t until the bear chased Peppy, the family beagle, early one morning across their porch and through the pet door that the trouble became too much to bear. "That bear ran smack into our sliding glass door next to the dog door and shattered it," Ruth Stemple said. "That bear didn’t come in the house, but it sure was scary." The bear’s behavior can be traced right back to its first encounter with the family garbage, say wildlife biologists who urge rural landowners to keep their property less attractive to hungry bears now instead of waiting for problems to begin. These large omnivores are smart opportunists who tend to revisit back yards and garages where they have found food before. "Once they’ve had that good dinner, they don’t go away very easily," said Merv Wolfer, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist in Central Point. "It’s a lot more difficult to break their habit than to stop it from happening in the first place." Early summer has brought a spate of bear complaints from throughout the Rogue Valley, where bears appear to be climbing down from high-elevation areas in search of food while they wait for blackberries to ripen and acorns to fall. So far this spring and summer, the ODFW’s Central Point office has logged more than 70 bear-damage complaints, which is about par for recent years, Wolfer said. One particular bear broke into several garages in one south Ashland neighborhood before it was struck by a car on Interstate 5 last month, Wolfer said. An Oregon State Police trooper shot and killed it. Another bear squashed Earl Showerman’s 6-foot-tall deer fence on a food raid in the upper Applegate Valley recently, and a different bear stood so defiantly outside Dusty Bouchard’s house in Selma that three barking Rottweilers couldn’t scare it away. One bear has visited Sam Williams’ Griffin Creek house regularly in recent weeks in search of his garbage. Williams is building a bear-proof garbage container, but in the interim he has stored his trash in an unused dog kennel surrounded by a 6-foot chain-link fence. The bear crushed that fence on a recent visit, and it took several potshots with rocks from Williams to finally to shoo it away. "It was an open invitation to have garbage in there, I know," Williams said. "But you could tell this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this. That bear wasn’t intimidated at all by the dog or by me." In the past, the ODFW trapped problem bears and released them elsewhere as a way to give them one last chance at a wild life. Two-time pests were killed. But research indicates that bears habitually key in on humans for food once they start, so all damage-causing bears now get a death sentence that is usually carried out by the landowner or a hired gun. "People don’t like to hear that," Wolfer said. "But the liability of putting a nuisance bear in somebody else’s back yard is a pretty big risk." In the Stemples’ case, they’ve cleaned up their garbage and replaced their sliding glass door. A friend last month shot the bear, whose carcass was turned over to the ODFW. And little Peppy doesn’t go out alone at night anymore. "We keep his doggy door locked now," Ruth Stemple said. "Now, he wakes me up when he has to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] An unwanted dinner guest? Don’t want your yard ruined by a pesky bruin? Here are some tips to reduce the likelihood of black bears causing damage at your home: Don’t leave any food out or unattended. Bears are creatures of habit and will return to a spot where they’ve found just one meal. Keep your garbage inside your house or closed garage, leaving your cans out just before pick-up. If a bear has ransacked your garbage, pour bleach into the can to remove any odors familiar to the bear. Keep all pet food inside or in a secured garage. Use three strands of low-cost electric fencing to deter bears from fruit trees, compost piles, beehives and outside garbage cans. Keep barbecue grills clean and stored inside. — Source: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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