There’s a bear in Baraboo: Animal wanders into neighborhood
Some Baraboo residents got a surprise nature lesson Monday afternoon when a 200-pound-plus American black bear wandered into a neighborhood at the edge of the city.
A short time later the bruin could be spotted roaming casually among homes there with police and local resident Tim Deppe trying to shepherd it away from the inhabited area.
At one point the bear tried to evade his pursuers by climbing a pine tree. However, after sitting in some lower branches for few minutes and looking around, he climbed down and galloped off in an eastward direction through the residences.
Eventually officers lost sight of the bear when he ran into the dense foliage of what local people said is an overgrown apple orchard.
Picture by Brian Bridgeford, Baraboo News Republic. What? Well, yes. He’s chasing it. How do you get rid of bears where you live?
This, later in the story, caught my eye:
Mike Ilkka lives a short distance from the wooded area where the bear took refuge and said he sees a lot of deer and other wildlife roam past his home. However, seeing the bear was a new experience.
“You see deer, coyotes. Two coyotes tried to tackle a deer right here, you see foxes here,” he said. “I never thought I’d see a bear, that’s good. At least you know they’re coming back,” Ilkka said.
On the one hand…I am glad to have bears and such roaming around, but bears and coyotes that aren’t afraid of people? That’s not good.
As a wise man once said: “Any bear that “bursts” into my house risks becoming a rug.”
I might go ahead and change “house” to “yard,” although after discharging a firearm in the city, they might not let me keep it.
The hide, that is.