Living With Bears

Steps to Take to Avoid Creating a Nuisance Bear

One way you can protect your beehives is by placing electric fencing around the hives, a bears nose and paws are very sensitive so once they get stung by the electric fence they may not come back. You can also hang bacon from the fence wire that way the bear will be attracted to the wire, when he goes to sniff the bacon he will get a shock further deterring him from wanting the beehives sweet honey.

The Vermont Bearhound Association is very proactive in educating the public about nuisance bears. The Vermont Fish & Wildlife will often call upon the bear houndsmen to help keep bears wild, by chasing the bear off with our hounds it will greatly decrease the chance that the bear will come back and harm your pets or get into more trouble. We work very closely with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Wardens, because when and if possible we would rather see the bear run off with hounds than be killed for being a nuisance

When you are barbequing make sure to clean your BBQ grill before putting it away, this decreases the chance that a bears very keen nose will smell the remnants of your food.

Do not put your trash outside the night before pickup day, wait until morning as bears among other animals take the opportunity to go and check out everything you threw away, making a mess of it.

Bring your bird feeders in during the summer months, as bird feeders are one of the most common bear attractants. Vermont Fish & Wildlife recommends feeding birds only during the winter months, from December 1 to March 31 as that is mainly when the bears go into hibernation.

If you have corn crop damage get ahold of a local houndsman, we can use our hounds to chase the bear off before they destroy all of the crops.

The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department has statistics stating that of the overall bear harvest, using hounds is one of the methods where the least amount of bears are taken. We truly care about the bears and keeping them wild and out of peoples yards when they are being a nuisance. Bear hounds are the only catch and release type of hunting there is and we strive to see bear hunting continue and are always willing to come and help people with bears that are becoming a nuisance.

The photos of the sow bear above were taken in May of 2021 getting into a bunch of trash and food scraps. While it is very exciting and awesome to see bears out and about this is absolutely not the way you should see them. A bear should be out foraging for food in the wild, not sticking their heads into dumpsters grabbing trash and rotten food scraps. We all love bears and want to see them thrive in the Vermont landscape, so please do your part in picking up and making sure your trash is secure. When bears become used to getting trash and other food items from people they start to lose their fear of people, which in turn could make them unpredictable and they could cause harm to you or your pets and ultimately would have to be put down, no one wants to see that happen. So again please secure your trash, spread word to your neighbors and community to pick up their trash and secure it, so that if a hungry bear does come by he doesn‘t stick around to eat your trash and food scraps. Remember a fed bear is a dead bear, don’t be the reason a bear has to be put down. Lets all help keep bears wild and out of trash cans, bird feeders and scrap foods.