Veazie warns residents to steer clear of bears in the neighborhood

VEAZIE, Maine — The beginning of springtime in Maine has a few telltale signs — mud, purple crocuses sprouting up …. and bear sightings in your backyard. 

The latter recently prompted the town of Veazie to warn the community on how to avoid conflicts with black bears, as the animals emerge from winter hibernation in search of food. 

Such was the case recently, when a resident on Riverview Street called police to report seeing a bear in a tree outside their home. 

Veazie usually gets a couple calls about bear sightings a year, said Town Manager Mark Leonard. The April 7 sighting was the first of 2020. 

A black bear was seen climbing a tree on Riverview Street in Veazie on Tuesday, April 7. (Courtesy of Mark Leonard.)

In most unordinary cases of bear sightings, the town would just let the animal go, Leonard said. But this was an unusual situation in which the bear had a snare trap stuck on a paw that looked like it’d been there for a while. 

Bear biologists from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife thought that the animal was attracted to the house because of a beehive in the yard, Leonard said. 

The next day, the town took to the internet to teach people how to avoid running into problems with bears this season with a message from DIF&W. 

“We felt as though this was a good opportunity to remind people to take in their bird feeders, clean their outdoor grills and not leave trash out,” Leonard said. 

“Maine has the largest population of black bears in the lower 48, and they’re most active April through November,” the post reads. “We want to help by offering some easy steps you can take now to prevent conflicts on your property this spring.

“When natural foods are scarce, especially in the spring or dry summers, bears will venture into backyards in search of easily accessible food such as bird feeders, garbage, grills and pet foods.”

The department encourages people to remove and store bird feeders from the yard, never leave pet food outside, to keep garbage bins inside a garage or the home until trash pick-up and to clean and store outdoor grills.

“While hundreds of conflicts between bears and people are reported each year in Maine, many can be prevented by simply removing or securing common bear attractants. Removing these food sources will also limit other backyard visitors (raccoons, skunks, etc).” 

A black bear was seen climbing a tree on Riverview Street in Veazie on Tuesday, April 7. (Courtesy of Mark Leonard.)

DIF&W also wants people to report bear sightings and share information on how to avoid bear-human conflicts with their neighbors. 

Conflicts between bears and humans are on the rise in New England. Bear-human conflicts nearly doubled between 2017 and 2018 in New Hampshire. 

[Conflicts between bears and humans spike in New Hampshire]

Jennifer Vashon, a wildlife biologist with the department said that they usually get 30 calls in April of bear sightings which rises to 100 calls the following month, then doubles to 200 by June. 

In 2017, DIF&W got 389 calls about bear complaints. Between April and August in 2018, they had received 462 complaints. 

“In a poor food year, we can have as many as 800 calls by fall and when natural foods are abundant we can have as few as 400 calls annually,” Vashon told the Bangor Daily News for an April 3 story on avoiding bear conflicts.