Well, bear season has begun in Northern Ontario, with several bear sightings already reported to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.
On Monday afternoon, reader Bruce Solski snapped the above images of what appears to be a young bear, snacking on seeds from a birdfeeder and lounging on the grass. Not a bad life.
Solski snapped these photos in the area of Marymount Academy.
If you have recent photos or footage of a bear, you can send them to Sudbury.com at [email protected], post them in the comments below, or send them through the website here.
Typical foods for bears at this time of year is the fresh grass that grows after the snow leaves. They live off that and stored fat until berries are available, where bears get most of their summer energy.
Now is the time to start being bear wise, MNRF spokesperson Jolanta Kowalski told Sudbury.com.
“What we are urging people to do is to start taking down their bird feeders once the snow is off the ground, because that will really attract bears,” she said. “Any kind of attractant, get a handle on it now.”
Bears usually avoid humans, but they are attracted into urban and rural areas in order to get food, said the MNRF on its Bear Wise website.
If bears learn they can find food where people live, they will return again and again and even try to enter buildings. Relocation and destruction are poor ways of trying to prevent conflicts with bears.
For more information on how to be bear wise, visit www.ontario.ca.
