Bears

[ollie]

Yep, read about it just a little while ago. Two have been sighted just south of Joplin around someones back yard. Here's the link to the globe. www.joplinglobe.com

[Phil Lilley]

Conservation officials are strenuously urging residents not to feed the animals.

Yea right. MDC is going to make everyone buy bear-proof containers for their trash and other smelly items.

This can't be good for the bears. No place to move them.

[Brian Sloss]

We just had one hit by a car in the last month about 15 miles from here in Koshkanong on hwy 63 which is between West Plains and Thayer. They are moving in slowly but surely. I am yet to see one in Missouri, but I know a few folks who have.

[whetstone]

I know of two different people who have game-cam pics from down around Seymour. One pic shows a sow with cubs, so they've obviously got a breeding population.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I suspect they will find a good home in Missouri, after all they are primarily vegetarians. The ones I've seen, not here, have been quick to take an escape route.

[ollie]

I'm just afraid some yahoo will get a notion to shoot just because. I would think the MDC would relocate them. There are too many houses around the area for too many bear snacks ( dog food, bird feeders, trash, etc. ). I would think they would become a nusiance after awhile. Supposedly from what I've heard they aren't running away from people. A construction crew said it came within distance of them working and it is coming into backyards. I'm also afraid someone is feeding them on purpose.

[jscheetz]

I'm just afraid some yahoo will get a notion to shoot just because.

WHAT?? Nooooooo!! Say it isn't so - - Noooooooo!!! I refuse to believe it!!! In the Ozarks???? Can't be!

Ollie, I think you have stepped way over the line here to suggest even so delicately that there could be Yahoo's in southern MO, and what's more that they may occasionally shoot something "just because". I think that is just mean spirited.

JS

[taxidermist]

So thats where my kids went to, they answer to Boo Boo and Yogi.

I have a friend that lives just east of Yellowstone, he is about as ruff a Mountain man as you will find. Near where he lives in the old place where Bill COdy lived for a while. Anyway they have a few bear in the area when one smaller Grizzly gets attention he will take a huge collar and chain the collar has spikes on it, he walks along askiong tourist if they have seen his grizzly.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I'm just afraid some yahoo will get a notion to shoot just because. I would think the MDC would relocate them. There are too many houses around the area for too many bear snacks ( dog food, bird feeders, trash, etc. ). I would think they would become a nusiance after awhile. Supposedly from what I've heard they aren't running away from people. A construction crew said it came within distance of them working and it is coming into backyards. I'm also afraid someone is feeding them on purpose.

I think you're right Ollie, I was thinking in terms overall. You're right they will become tame and a dangerous nusience if people feed them, deliberatly or accidentaly.

[taxidermist]

They will never be tame. They will just acept people until its to late.

There is a saying "A fed bear is a dead bear!" its so right! I have a small bear that hangs around here, he and yes its a he, does not get fed anything and when we catch him to close to the house we try to run him off, even tot he point a using a shotgun and #9 bird shot.

Last summer my son and I were working on an old car and the young bear came within about 30 yards of us we never knew he was there until it would have been to late.

There are lots of brush piles and downed trees for the bear to dig grubs out of, but then I live west of hwy 123 and theres not much between us and hwy 7 pretty remote with several thousand acres behind our place.

Yep dont feed the bears!