Bear Sighting in Toccoa Reminds Everyone to Be “Bear Wise”

In Toccoa-Stephens County a black bear was reportedly sighted Tuesday roaming around the intersection of Fernside Drive and Brookdale Road Monday.

Toccoa Police Chief Jimmy Mize said, however, his officers rode the area and had no contact with the bear.

In our area, it is not uncommon to encounter black bears this time of year.

Young males are searching for their own territories and female bears are foraging for food for themselves and their new cubs.

So it is important to make sure to make your property unattractive to black bears.

Scott Frazier is a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in Gainesville.

Frazier says that’s why the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is encouraging everyone to be “Bear Wise” to keep black bears from becoming a nuisance on your property.

Here are some things you can do to prevent black bears from hanging around.

First, he said to check your property to make sure there’s nothing on it that could attract a black bear.

“One of the six BearWise Basics is about securing food, garbage, and recycling,” he said. “When bears have access to human-provided foods, regardless of the source or the intent, they will take advantage of them and that often leads to further problems.”

To keep that from happening, Frazier said to remove or secure anything in your yard the bear might view as an easy meal.

“Once bears have learned bad habits and have come to rely on people for a ‘free meal,’ they never change those behaviors and nuisance bear behavior progressively gets worse with time and experience,” Hammond explained. “If you really care about bears, please make the extra effort to ensure that your home and yard are ‘unattractive’ to bears – to protect yourself, your family and pets, and bears.”

Frazier pointed out there’s a difference between a bear sighting and an actual encounter with a bear.

If you see a bear in the wild, the best thing you can do is leave it alone and let it go its own way.

Black bears are not typically aggressive like, for example, a Grizzly. The one exception, however, is a sighting of bear cubs.

If you see bear cubs, it means a momma bear is nearby and she will attack if she thinks you are too close to her cubs.

Cubs are cute but you need to leave the area quickly and quietly and not attempt to get near them.