This summer, every few days, there was a new story in our local news about black bears being sighted in places in neighboring cities they aren't usually. One black bear was spotted enjoying fast food from a local Sonic's garbage. Another was seen climbing a fence alongside a bridge near a highway. Another black bear was roaming around the city and a few hotel parking lots. My husband saw a young black bear running across the road not too far from our house.

I don't know if there were really more bears around than usual, but with social media and the news picking up facebook posts to report on televised news it seemed like black bears were moving into human territory. Black bears are pretty common in the forest areas of where I live but it is strange so many ventured into busy city places.

My favorite place to see Black Bears: Grandfather Mountain Wildlife Habitats

The nice thing about Grandfather Mountain is that they fence off the bears natural habitats. This is different from zoos because zoos build exhibits that look like a natural habitat but aren't natural because they are man made. The black bears at Grandfather Mountain live in their natural habitat. That being said, being fenced in and having tourists stare at you probably isn't so natural to the bears. For a small price you can buy dried apples to feed to the bears and they seem quite happy with the free food. source

In The Fog A Bear Can Easily Sneak Up On You

I took these pictures on a very foggy day. It was around three in the afternoon. It had rained earlier in the day so it was super foggy in the higher elevations. The bears blended in with the shadows and dreariness of the day. They have a wall above the bears you can stand on to see them below in their natural habitat. In past visits on prettier days the black bears would be beneath the wall while tourists fed them treats. This day, in the rain and the fog they stayed back near the rocks.

This summer I did enjoy seeing the media coverage of all the black bears. They are beautiful animals. It was strange for so many to venture into public spots and some did some damage and were euthanized. That's such a shame. It's so sad to see such beautiful creatures roam near humans who fear them and want to kill them in response. In some cases the bears were tranquilized and safely moved back into the forests away from city life. Police and wildlife officials did a good job this summer saving some of the bears that got too far into the city and couldn't get out by tranquilizing them and relocating them. That's not always possible but it's good quite a few black bears did get rescued.

Video Someone Else Took Of Grandfather Mountain Black Bears

The above video is from youtube just to show you the bears up close on a day with better weather.

All photos are my own.