New Hampshire officials are warning people about a surge of bear encounters in the White Mountain region over the last few weeks.
The White Mountain National Forest wrote on Facebook that bears are following campers and begging for food.
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New Hampshire Fish and Game emphasized that people who don't know how to properly interact with bears are the ones causing the problem.
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Experts say you should never feed bears or leave food and trash out at your campsite, but if you do encounter a bear, you can be prepared by carrying an airhorn and keeping your distance.
"We have a strong bear population. If you're hiking in places like the White Mountains, you're going to see bears," New Hampshire Fish and Game Program Supervisor Andrew Timmins said. "The key is to recognize the bear is not approaching you because it's aggressive. The bear is approaching you because it could be food conditioned and it's used to getting food tossed to it."
People like Cy Tapley, a camper from Pittsfield, New Hampshire, have been reporting black bear encounters almost daily over the last few weeks. He said he locked his cooler in the car, but his grill was still too hot to put away by the time he went to bed.
"Saturday morning, probably around 6:30, I heard something in the bushes," Tapley said. "He just stood up and looked right at me like, 'You gonna get up and make something?'"
New Hampshire Fish and Game has received over 50 reports that they believe stem from one bear that has become very comfortable around campers, according to Timmins. He emphasized that it shouldn't make people fearful of the forest.
"There was a report of a bluff charge, which is a bear's natural instinct," Timmins said. "I recommend people carry two things with them; an air horn and also the metal hiking poles that a lot of hikers use… Probably the best tool is just being mentally prepared. 'What am I going to do if I see a bear on the trail?'"
New Hampshire hasn't seen a bear fatality in hundreds of years, but Timmins said that, if people aren't careful, bears that get too comfortable could end up being euthanized.
"As a management agency, we have a decision to make when we get reports of a bear like this," Timmins said. "We certainly want to educate people about how to interact with a bear to try to break any habituated behavior that may be forming, but we also have to make the determination, is this a bear that needs to be captured and euthanized, which is not our preference."
More bear news
This bear behavior isn't just happening to campers, it's happening in people's backyards, too. Stephanie Miller caught a bear crushing her flowers and eating from a bird feeder on her lawn further south in Hooksett, New Hampshire.
"I had a hummingbird feeder out, which attracted her, so I took it in after this happened," Miller said. "I think it's really neat to have them come through and safe to watch from a distance, but people need to take in their bird feeders because as we know, a fed bear is a dead bear."
