Did y’all know that July is peak bear sighting month in the US? I sure didn’t! The Today Show recently had a segment with some alarming, yet in many cases still adorable footage. Like a guy in Colorado who heard honking all night, then went outside to discover a bear sitting on his car horn. If that were me, I would’ve been like, “Yes all right, you own my car now.” So what’s the explanation for the uptick in bear encounters during the seventh month of the year? Well, it’s the bear necessities of life. Namely food and a cool place to park your carcass in soaring temps. That Today clip showed one bear strolling into an air-conditioned office and a second plopping down into a backyard kiddie pool. In this heatwave, I cannot blame the overheated galumphs. Meanwhile a local CBS station had more info on the all-important food angle:
A bear walking through a parking lot in Gatlinburg, Tennessee is not the start of a joke. It is July — America’s peak month for bear encounters.
That means thousands of run-ins with people this month alone, from poolside snack raids in Tennessee to bears spotted in New York City’s Central Park.
Ashley Hobbs, a state bear biologist in North Carolina, says it comes down to one thing.
“It’s all about the food,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs says people leave food lying out — and bears can smell it from 10 miles away.
“They’re like us, you know. It’s easier to run through the McDonald’s than it is to go home and cook a full meal,” Hobbs said.
Wendy Newman of Asheville, North Carolina, had her own close encounter when a bear smelled her cinnamon waffles and started banging on her door.
“Oh! That’s never happened before. I see them in the yard all the time,” Newman said.
Newman said she has come to terms with sharing the space.
“Unfortunately, I’m in theirs. They were here before me. That’s as much their home as it is my home,” Newman said.
Three bears have even been spotted in New York City’s Central Park.
Bear encounters are on the rise across the U.S. as human development sprawls into bear habitat and bears increasingly venture into populated areas in search of food.
Boldly venturing into new territory after following your nose to the scent of ready-made food? Banging on a stranger’s door for homemade cinnamon waffles?? Not for the first time in my life, I’m wondering if I am myself a bear. And whereas I’d immediately cede ownership of a car a bear had laid claim to, the waffles I would not give up so easily. (I’m not even joking.) And speaking of confrontations, should you find yourself face-to-face with a member of the Ursidae family, the prevailing advice is to make yourself big and tall and stand your ground. I call this the Helen Mirren method (iykyk), and it works for both humans and ferocious Pomeranians. Now if you’ll excuse me, my snout has caught a whiff of some roasted garlic dish that must be investigated…
Photos credit: Christina Glebova on Unsplash, Jennifer Kardiak on Pexels