The bear spotted in recent weeks across the northern Perimeter area may be making himself at home in north Fulton County; police confirmed sightings Thursday night near Windward and North Point parkways in Alpharetta.
"You don't really expect to see a bear in the middle of the road somewhere in Alpharetta," Samantha Parker, one of several residents who reported seeing the animal, told Channel 2 Action News.
A state wildlife official theorizes the young bear was pushed out of its North Georgia habitat by older, bigger bears. He hopes the animal will find its way back home on its own and not get too comfortable being around people. But it certainly seems comfortable with the suburbs.
Earlier this week, John McCormick sent to the AJC images of the animal recorded by the trail camera in the front yard of his home in the Rivermont subdivision in Johns Creek. They were taken shortly after midnight Saturday.
Ann Sikes, who lives in the Riverwood Acres subdivision near Roswell, emailed the AJC to say she saw the bear in her yard Sunday night after it apparently got into her bird feeder.
The bear is believed to have wandered into the area from the west, following the Chattahoochee River upstream from Sandy Springs and Dunwoody. People from both cities called in bear sightings in recent weeks.
The black bear population in the North Georgia mountains is growing, and some younger males “are getting pushed out” and are seeking their own territories, Don McGowan a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, told Channel 2.
The north Fulton bear, he said, may have been confused “with all of the cars and sights and sounds and smells” of metropolitan Atlanta, but it also may have discovered “a lot of potential food sources.”
There has never been an unprovoked bear attack on a human in Georgia, McGowan said. The animals “have a shyness toward people and would rather avoid direct confrontation with people.”
But danger could arise if the bear becomes accustomed to humans supplying it with food.
The feeding doesn’t have to be deliberate.
Sikes said she and her husband Alan suspected something was amiss when they looked in their yard Saturday night and saw their bird feeder was missing and its pole, bent.
“Alan said maybe it was a bear, and I laughed,” Sikes told the AJC. But Sunday night, she said, “I was looking out the window about 8:30 and saw this bear walk up to the bird feeder pole and stand up.”
“The bear saw movement and took off up the backyard, but only about 20 feet. It can really move fast. It walked around looking for food,” Sikes said. “It looks to be a juvenile but still it is 5 to 6 feet tall when it stands up and must weigh 300 pounds at least.”
McGowan said that while the bear is in the area, people should put away their bird feed and keep pet food indoors. He said, “We want them to always have that natural fear of people. We don’t want them to associate food with people.”
And it should go without saying that if you encounter the animal, keep your distance.
For now, McGowan said, “the last thing we want to do is kill this bear. That’s why we’re giving it every opportunity to make it back to North Georgia without us getting involved.”
More information about black bears in Georgia is available at the Department of Natural Resources website.
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