Hearing a clanking sound outside her Florence home, Sheryl Civjan looked out to see a medium-size black bear climbing up and down a maple tree, passing by vehicles parked in the driveway and heading up the steps of the back porch.
On that day in late May, Civjan’s husband, Scott, yelled at and startled the bear, which has become a frequent presence near their home this spring.
“I find it amazing to see them like this, although of course it concerns me that we are in their space, and there is a potential for disaster,” Civjan said. “Their beauty is so evident as they move about.”
In late winter, Joanie Daniels discovered a bear hibernating in a partially hollowed-out old maple tree in her yard. Once the bear came out of hibernation, Daniels said her family learned the bear was not alone but accompanied by three cubs.
“We loved quarantining alongside them for a month before they left,” Daniels said.
Fascinated, Daniels set up a “bear cam” to see how the bear ventured out of its den. That showed the bear exploring its surroundings by walking out on a maple tree limb and eventually starting to descend from the tree in the evenings to forage in the woods.
“While she was gone, we caught better glimpses of the cubs. It turned out that there were three, and they had a good time while mama was away,” Daniels said, adding that friends and family helped in giving them names, the mother bear Treena and the cubs Eb, Flo and Michael A. Bear.
The Civjan family and the Daniels family are among area residents who have observed bears this spring, and it’s likely more people will be seeing them as the weather gets warmer, said David Wattles, a black bear biologist for MassWildlife.
“Bears are quite well adapted to living in communities and are highly adapted to the modern landscape,” Wattles said.
Urban environments have become attractive due to the ready food source people have available at their homes, some intended for other animals, like bird seed and pet food, as well as food scraps thrown out by families.
“These cubs are being trained, from day one, that the easiest place to find a meal is in the backyard,” Wattles said. “It’s hard for them to resist the easy meals.”
Because the mother bears and cubs have to get all their needed feed in the seven months prior to hibernation, bird feeders have become an ideal source of food and offer more nutritious options for them than the grass and other plants they depend on until acorns, berries and other similar food is available.
The mild winter, and little snow cover throughout, meant some bears hibernated while others remained active throughout the season, and by April all black bears began coming out. Their presence will continue as the cubs get older and the bears begin moving around even more with their mothers, according to Wattles.
Wattles said June is typically the peak month for reports to local police departments as the mating season begins and the year-old cubs begin venturing out on their own.
“But the more time they spend in neighborhoods, the better chance of a negative encounter,” Wattles said.
Though bears mostly pose just a nuisance to people, Wattles said he got a call about one bear that broke into a screened porch and put itself at risk of injury because the homeowners likely felt threatened.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the time they don’t meet a good fate,” Wattles said, observing that bears can sometimes climb trees and then take a hard fall if they have to be tranquilized by wildlife officials.
Both Northampton and Amherst police have seen few calls related to bears this year. Amherst police in early May responded to a call when college students tried to scare off a cub, which hid behind a bush and then a car before Environmental Police got there to resolve the issue.
The usual tips apply to homeowners to keep bears away, such as taking down bird feeders, making sure any garbage and trash is secured and any other potential food sources are not around.
“We really need the public to take that message seriously,” Wattles said.
For those who have backyard chickens and beehives, electric fencing on the perimeter is an ideal deterrent, as it won’t harm the bears, but they will know enough to stay away, Wattles said.
The bear population still has the highest density in Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River, with the source population in the northern Berkshires. But the area from the Connecticut River east to Worcester County is seeing the most rapid increase in the bear population.
Wattles said the state has 37 collared female bears it tracks, which allows officials to monitor their survival and the number of cubs they are producing, among other data points.
For most people, bears won’t be a danger. Wattles said there are only seven documented physical confrontations with bears, and there has never been a recorded human fatality from a bear interaction in Massachusetts, but people who spot a bear should enjoy it by keeping a safe distance and make noise if a bear approaches.
Daniels said the bears left her property the night of April 14, with the mother bear getting the cubs out from the tree.
“We set up the cam in the woods and kept them in our sights for about a week, before they took off for good,” Daniels said. “We miss them.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
