Black bear in tree near my house

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
We live near a lot of woods and we know there are bear around but honestly I didnt know bear could climb a tree and stay in it all day while the police cleared a path for the bear and people took pictures. I felt so sorry for poor scared bear...lol. He came down at night and walked toward the woods.

In our boring neck of the woods, the bear was a big star yesterday!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Black bears dont normally hurt people. They are scared of people. Its grizzly bears that are meat eaters. Now THAT wouldnt have been so cute!!
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
General stupidity that so often abounds when it comes to people and wildlife, never ceases to gobsmack me. We've seen some really stupid behaviour from people related to this over the years.

Glad all unfolded for the safety and good of everyone. Keeping ones distance while appreciating wildlife is the first rule of order.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Trust me. People were all standing around the barricade, getting as close as they could, to take pictures, pdobably further s aring tje poor bear. A few others wanted the DNR to make tje bear go away.

I felt sorry for the bear. They had some clise up shits online and he is so cute! I do wish people would leave wild life alone. Dont kill or try to pet. Leave the animals alone...
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Actually, SWOT,

Grizzly, and Brown Bear are mostly vegetarian/insectivores. They eat fish during spawning runs, young animals, and scavenge.

Black bears (what you saw) eat damned near anything. They were a common sight up where I lived.

I feel sorry for the poor bear; it must've been terrified. Black bears are tremendous climbers, though less so as adults.

Grizzlies do not climb.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Thanks, GN. It was my wildlife specialist husband (cough) who told me about black bears!!

This one was just scared.

We have wildlife here too, but definitely you likely had more. We arent that open. Lots of people, traffic, and more land out of town. But we do have woods.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I lived in town, too! (right across from Wal-Mart, in fact.) But, we had bear, deer of course, eagles and various hawks, a mama bobcat who had kittens every year, a cougar (saw tracks occasionally), feral pigs, coyotes, and a wolf pack not that far away.

I was right on the edge of miles and miles of woods and parkland, as well as timber land.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
It was cool in certain respects, scary in others. I should note that I lived on the edge of town, as opposed to "downtown".

Bear were a pain in the butt. We couldn't have bird feeders and had to go through all sorts of contortions to secure our trash. (While businesses involved with food left theirs open.)

For the most part, the DNR would tag and relocate the problem bears, but if a tagged bear returned, it was shot.

We had one sow who was actually breaking into cabins, and taught her three cubs to do the same. All 4 had to be shot.

We also had a hunting season on bear up there.

The bobcats and the cougar were no problem, though I certainly wouldn't have wanted to run into the cougar.

The only problems we ever had with the birds of prey, including several species of owl, was once, when a neighbor let her chihuahua run loose and it was taken by a bald eagle.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Wow. Interesting. Thanks, GN. A bald eagle and a chihuahua. Dogs are my first love, even more than people. I dont think i want to know how that turned out.

I love wild life but do think its smart to tag and move problem animals and even shoot dangerous ones, although I could never be the shooter!

GN, this is off topic but I thought of you today...

GN, if you want to smile (and I am just guessing that you will find this as amusing as I did) go on YouTube and type in "Ten worst places to live in Wisconsin." I was a bit surprised Adams and Tomah werent listed but they only had room for ten...you will recognize a few well.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Sad thing is, I've been to all of them. Have been to Tomah and agree. Don't remember Adams, but that doesn't mean i haven't been there.

Rhinelander really went down the tubes the last few years I was up there.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Same with WR. Once hub retires...we are gone. Used to be practically no crime here. Now tons and we are crowned Heroin Capital of Wisconsin.

Adams is so bad Im shocked it didnt make the top three. Everyone around here has Adams jokes...or they did before it got worse out here. They did win another title "Redneck City of Wisconsin." (Adams)

My kids actually lived in and went to school in a nice village off of WR. We moved here after the kids got out of school to be closer to everything. But we dont like it.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I had to go down to Merrill about 10 years ago, and went to Antigo during the same time period and was absolutely shocked at how bad they had gotten.

Mosinee will hold up as long as the mill stays open. Wausau has other businesses than the mills, but is still pretty dependent. Stevens Point has the University.

When I first moved up there in 03, Rhinelander had a lot of meth, but then in the late aughts, heroin and pills started making huge inroads.

They busted several doctors and NPs who were running pill mills up there out of a couple of pain clinics.

And from there it went to street stuff. That's when the violent crime and property crime really took off.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Wow. Its scary when health care professionals get involved. I hate hearing that. What I have heard is that our county is all about heroin and Marathan is all about meth. Lovely.

I have never been to most of the towns mentioned (Beloit I got lost in once and it looked pretty bad and i think my youngest played sports against Antigo, but we went at night so didnt notice much). WR was where Princess went to middle and high school and she got into drugs. I thought it was bad then. Its ten times worse now. Princess says nobody used heroin back then and there were no knives and guns at school then either. There are now.

I have never been to Superior but it sounds terrible.

Ive been to Stevens Point a lot and its by far more cultural and interesting than most of middle Wisconsin. Youthful too, which I prefer. I want ro stay near Sonic and Jumper or we would consider Madison.
 
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GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Madison is a neat place to visit, but i sure as heck wouldn't want to live there. Traffic is insane, and so is cost of living.

It's become very trendy, and rents and property prices are sky high, both in Madison, and in surrounding suburbs.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I was last in Superior shortly before Stu died. It was our "last trip" (the one on which Stu suffered his final illness) and Stu wanted to go up to Superior as he remembered visiting that area as a child.

It was horribly depressing...stark and windy and dusty, and even the Lake, which Stu loved, looked cold, lonely, and desperate.

We pulled into the parking lot at the beach and sat there for a few minutes looking out over the water, and Stu said, "Let's get the eff out of here. This place feels like Norse hell (Hal)."
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
A lot of Milwaukee has become the bad part.

I live in one of those cities on the list. It isnt a threatening place like Milwaukee but its suffered loss of paper mills, no jobs, drugs galore and drug related crime and a real lack of anything remotely different or academic to entertain. We only stay because husband works here. When he retires, adios!

GN, Superior sounds terrible. If looking at water can depress a person, then the general atmosphere has got to be gloomy. Sorry that Stu had no chance to relive good childhood memories when he was so sick.

To all: Wherever you live, Nick Johnson has a youtube video, all amusing, of the ten worst places to live in your state. I also listened to the Illinois tape as I lived there for 40 years. But Most of those cities were in southern illinois, including the infamous East St. Louis IL which ends up in Missouri and is very dangerous. I lived near Chicago.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
The problem with Milwaukee is that it is the most segregated city in the US. Plus it is incredibly divided along economic lines.

As a result, there is massive amount of racial tension.

Add in that Milwaukee County's Sheriff is an insane fascist, and you're talking a real powder keg situation.
 
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