EAST BEND
Bear, schmare.
Rod Hunter was thinking along those lines last week when his wife, Connie, told him she had seen a bear coming out of their garage.
It's not that Hunter didn't believe his wife. It's just that, well….
"The whole time I'm thinking, ‘She saw a big black lab,'" Hunter said.
Doubt-filled, he ran toward a tractor shed where Connie said the bear was headed. The Hunters live on 18 wooded acres in a corner of Yadkin County close to the borders of Stokes, Surry and Forsyth counties. In the 12 years or so the Hunters have lived there, they have seen raccoons, deer and snakes, but never a bear.
Connie Hunter knew her husband would be skeptical.
"Once, we went to the coast and I saw a bear, and he didn't believe it because he didn't see it," she said with a laugh. "I was determined he would see this one."
Sure enough, by the tractor shed, a black bear was sauntering through the woods. As soon as it saw Hunter, it darted off. And Hunter returned to his house.
"I knew I had to apologize to her," he said.
The Hunters called the N.C. Wildlife Commission about their sighting. Someone at the agency told them the sighting was not a surprise given the way that bears are extending their range into the Piedmont.
The bear population in North Carolina has exploded in the past few years, jumping from about 4,000 bears living on 2.5 million acres in 1971 to about 11,000 living on almost 10 million acres in 2004.
Chris Kreh, a wildlife biologist for the state, said that he has heard a few reports of a bear in Yadkin County this year. He said he suspects that the one that the Hunters saw is the same bear that others have seen.
"The reports are very similar. They're chance encounters. It's something that folks are not at all used to seeing in those areas. Typically, you can plot where it goes."
Most likely, the bear came from either Wilkes or northern Stokes counties, traveling along the Yadkin River.
Kreh, whose district covers 11 counties, said he wouldn't be surprised if a bear or two wanders into Forsyth County.
A bear shows up in new territory looking for food. To discourage a bear from hanging around an area, Kreh said, people should store their garbage securely, feed their pets inside and keep food inside.
The bear the Hunters saw ventured into their garage to feed on some food scraps that they kept stored in a sealed bin. Typically, they keep the garage door closed but it was open that night.
Later that night, Hunter saw it again near the back deck as he prepared to grill some chicken. After Hunter snapped a few photos, the bear went into their blackberry garden. Afraid it was going to destroy their garden, Rod Hunter began yelling at it and waving his arms, a common way to frighten bears.
But the tactic backfired.
"It stood on its hind legs and made either a hiss or a growl, so I said, ‘This is not good. I'm going back to the house,'" Hunter said.
The bear later took off into the woods. They haven't seen it since.
Hunter is no stranger to wildlife encounters. A few years ago on a trip to Alaska, he came within several yards of a grizzly bear.
"I never dreamed in my wildest imagination," he said, "that I'd ever see a bear in Yadkin County."
■ Lisa O'Donnell can be reached at 727-7420 or at lo'donnell@wsjournal.com.
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