Bear incidents on the rise in Cass County
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A bear entered an 85-year-old woman’s house in Cass County on Tuesday. As she hid behind a locked door in another room, law enforcement officers scared the bear away. It left, but kept returning.
Sheriff Bryan Welk said officers couldn't leave in case something bad happened.
“Being such a rural county, they could be half-hour to 45 minutes away if they're at a different call and there was really a fear for the woman living there,” Welk said.
Ultimately, an officer had to kill the animal.
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It’s one of 19 reported bear incidents in the county since February, Welk said. There were 17 throughout the entirety last year.
Those incidents have included car crashes and three separate cases of bears entering occupied homes, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.
Experts at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said despite present drought conditions, natural food sources in the area are adequate. The primary cause for an uptick in sightings is bears having easy access to things like unsecured bird feeders and garbage cans.
“Bear-human conflict, 99 percent of the time it’s in relationship to food,” said Area Wildlife Supervisor Rob Baden. “So if you're a homeowner and you have bird feeders on your deck, you're leaving your grill or your pet food out there, that's what bears are attracted towards.”
Cass County is in the heart of bear range, he said. Plus, black bears typically mate from May to July, and juvenile bears leave the den at the same time.
“This is their first time away from mom,” he said. “They're trying to learn where their place is in the bear world, where they can find food, and they need to be educated that humans aren't a good place to find food, and they get into trouble.”
Baden said those juvenile bears are “kind of like a bunch of rowdy teenagers roaming around.”
Humans can help teach them there’s no food around by keeping garbage in bear-resistant containers, removing bird feeders and keeping pet food indoors.
If they approach, it’s best to scare them.
“Educate the bears, it's okay to harass them,” Baden said. “They're on your porch, bang some pots and pans, trigger your car alarm, shoot a gun in the ground, fireworks, stuff like that; any kind of loud noises to scare them."
If a black bear makes contact, DNR guidance says to fight back aggressively and consider using bear spray.
