Black bear in Missouri – black bear on my farm??

[Bibbyman]

I don't know if Missouri ever lost every black bear in the state.  But the past few years they have made a comeback.   Mostly in the Ozark area, but they have spread all over the state.

A couple of years ago the gravel haulers spotted a black bear feeding from a deer feeder.   They stopped and watched it and there was more than one witness.  This spot is about 200 yards from our property line and in the same valley as I have recently found what I think is bear scat.

I have found droppings like this before in the past couple of years.  I've looked for other sign but not found anything conclusive.

This year has been exceptionally dry.  A drought in fact.  All the streams are dry.  The creek has a few shallow puddles. One place in many miles that has water is a spring well up in the roughest and most remote part of our farm.  It's in this area that I've fund the suspicious scat.



 



 

I can't make the scat be any wild or domestic animal that I'm familiar with.  It can't be carnivore as there is no hair, bone or other indication other than a plant eater.  It doesn't look like horse or cow droppings.



 

Yesterday I set out a Moultrie L50 trail cam just a little down from where the spring comes up in the steam bed.  There is a heavy used trail coming in on the right side of it.  I've not checked it yet.  I may tomorrow afternoon.  If I get anything it'll most likely be a deer or coon.

[terry f]

     Looks like it to me. Look for logs rolled over and stumps tore up, that seems to be their favorite things to do around here. How is it there aren't alot of bears around there, looks like perfect ground to me.

[Paul_H]

This year has been exceptionally dry.  A drought in fact.  All the streams are dry.  The creek has a few shallow puddles.

It must be dry if the bears are drinking bottled water :P

[Bibbyman]

I found the first scat in a small hay field in the lower end of this valley.   About 20' from it was a big section of paper wasp nest.   It was a goodly distance from any place it could have hung.   I guess coons or something else could have broken into it.

There are wild blackberry bushes further in and around this valley but because of the drought, there were very few this year. I've yet to see an acorn and have asked others that are often in the woods and they've not seen any.

[Bibbyman]

I couldn't wait.  I swapped our the SD card.  Had five pictures.  Four were of me. When I set it up yesterday I deliberately walked around in front of the camera to, 1) see if it works, 2) what kind of picture it will take, and 3) what kind of field of view it would capture.   The fifth picture was taken when I opened the camera to turn it off.

I moved the camera higher up on the tree.  The tree leans towards the branch so the camera points a little down.

I expected to catch a deer or maybe a coon.

[drobertson]

thanks for that photo, I have seen this skat allot, thought it might be, well was not sure what layed it, We do have black bears here, I am just short of a mile from the upper Jacks Fork river, Lots of critters, the mutts are going crazy as I type, kinda frustrating, but, it is what it is, getting a trail camera too, will send something to see soon,  I hope it is the buck, One more glimpse this morning, a nice one,  later,

[Bibbyman]

I'm thinking this trail cam would only work if placed over a food plot.   I think the wake-up time is so long, an animal can sounder by and maybe trip the camera but be on down the trail by the time the camera fires off.

Where I found the second scat, there is a patch of pawpaws. I didn't see any on them.   I figure it's too late in the year.  In years past, I've found green pawpaws but I've never been quick enough to find them ripe.   

[Bibbyman]

http://www.chasingame.com/index.php?id=221

Here is a review of the Moultrie L50 trail cam.  I don't know if I read it first I would have changed my mind.   This web site has a lot of reviews on other trail cams.

[Bibbyman]

I'm getting discouraged.  Waited two days and retrieved the card.  One picture and that was when I opened the camera to turn it off.   I moved it down the branch about 100 feet to what looks to be an active deer bedding area. 

I would think a deerm, coon, crazy squirrel or turkey something would at least trip the camera even if it missed what tripped it.  It took pictures of me just poking around so it works.

[beenthere]

Ahhh Bibby,
That is the life with a trail cam. ;)

As long as it is taking pics of you, then you should be set.

Take into the equation that your presence around the camera will leave plenty of scent (no offense meant  ;D ) and deer and bear will take that into account when they are poking around.
Then again, there are times they will show up within a few minutes of leaving the camera.

Hope you catch something on the camera soon tho.

[okmulch]

Put some food down. You should get plenty of action then.  ;D

[ely]

yes throw a box of donuts out there and a couple bottles of water. :D

[Bibbyman]

I worry about being in the area too much.   But it's not going to disturb deer. They are practically tame.  I'm setting in the yard and watching one about 100 yards down the hill.

I know of some real active deer trails.  They have deep paths warn like cattle. But that's not where I suspect the bear.

The bear may have left looking elsewhere for food.

Say, I noticed some pretty large rocks in the branch had been turned up or over. Would that be something a bear would do looking for bugs, etc under the rocks? The rocks are good size but maybe a big coon could turn them up also.

Someone told me the persimmon trees are loaded in our area this year.  But I checked our biggest patch and didn't find a one on them.

[Sprucegum]

Those paper wasp nests are a favorite food of the black bears around here. They eat all the larva ( or whatever you call the unhatched bees) and then carry the combs around; for the fun of it I guess.

That scat looks like brer bears for sure.

I don't know what laws you have in regards to baiting. Contrary to popular belief; fish or meat will bring them back quicker than donuts.  ;)  :D

[Bibbyman]

I don't know what laws you have in regards to baiting. Contrary to popular belief; fish or meat will bring them back quicker than donuts.  ;)  :D

More input ... About a month ago granddaughter and I cleaned out some old stuff from my folk's freezer.   We had a Mule load.  We took it to the lower end of this valley and took it out of its packages and dumped it.  In the assortment was several gallons of berries. 

[okmulch]

You been feeding them all along.  ;D

[ellmoe]

   Bears have a big home range, or it could be a young male out looking for a place to set up "house-keeping". It may be awhile before it comes back, if it ever does.

Mark

[Bibbyman]

A question about what it takes to trip a trail cam?  Or specifically the Moultrie L50.

Is the beam like a laser beam so something has to be directly in front of the camera and at the right height? Or is the trip detection area more distributed?

That is, if I set the camera up 4' off the ground and point it out level, would something 3' talk walking past 20' away just walk under without being detected?

[beenthere]

A great question.

Worth a bit of experimentation maybe.

Set up the camera, and hang objects, like a bean bag, sack of feed, etc. to swing across the camera low, middle, high and then fast/slow.

Then determine how much movement triggers the cam, how long the movement has to be in front at different focus points before an image is recorded.

They could be some very helpful bits of information.

That said, I should do that with my own cameras. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Yes bears will roll old logs and stones for grubs. They will also climb saplings and bend them down and they do not need to be fleshing fruit bearing saplings. I've seen them bend down ash and birch and suspect they are pulling down some spruce inspecting the cones on my plantations. My woodlot has a bear who goes to a couple red oaks every year and climbs them. He also rolls logs all the time. I only saw him once and he was way too close for comfort coming out of thicket onto my trail. He spotted me and ran for his life.

[Bibbyman]

If the trip sensor is just a laser beam with no detection left, right or up, down then the only hope is to bait so to get the animal to stand in the exact spot to get its picture taken.

I don't have anything to use for bait.   I may ask the produce manager at the grocery story if I could go dumpster diving.

[Bibbyman]

I've found out that it's called "detection angle" and there is a "detection area". But I can't find what those values are on the Moultrie L50.

Farmer neighbors were just here.  Said they have the field just south of our property planted in sorghum sudan (or sudan sorghum? ). Said the deer are working overtime on it. I don't know if it's bear food or not.

[SwampDonkey]

If you see any small masses of dead leaves up in the oaks and beech, that is bear. They make a kind of nest by pawing the branch tips for the nuts. Bear sign in grain is in the form of small crop circles. They mull it down in small beds and have a tuck'n out. They seem to relish oats.

[Bibbyman]

This same field was in barley this spring.

[Bibbyman]

A funny thing happened on the way to the trail cam today.  No..  No joke.  I jumped three bucks in velvet.  There well could have been more but three is all I saw.



 

Here is the only picture taken by the Moultrie that I didn't trip.  I first thought there was nothing in it.  But there is.  In the lower right is what looks to be a buck antler in velvet.  I can tell because I tripped off the camera a couple more times just moving around and testing it. This velvet antler is not in the other pictures. It wasn't the bucks that I jumped up as the picture was taken the evening before.



 

On reaching the branch, I noted a rock about the size of a turkey platter that had obviously been overturned. You can see a place below it in the picture where it had been.  Lots of tracks.  Mostly deer.  But none I can make to be bear tracks.

Mary keeps a bucket in the kitchen where she discards scraps to the compost bed.  It was mostly full of cantaloupe rind and innards.  I found some outdated stuff in the refrigerator to top off the bucket.  Not much but maybe it'll slow something down to look and smell.