How to Prevent Visits and Damage from Bears

I snagged the following from Front Porch Forum this afternoon. It was written by Cassandra Hemenway, Outreach Manager, Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District. She has some good advice.

Hello from the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District! After extensive research and multiple conversations with Vermont's bear biologists, we have found some options for folks concerned about bears getting into their compost or chickens, and how to potentially avoid bear-human interaction, which it seems is all too common lately in the area. The ideas I'm about to mention come from Vermont Fish & Wildlife bear biologists and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

1. As I am sure you are all aware, removing bird feeders year round (not just in the spring & summer) is the number one thing you can do to keep bears away. They are coming in for food (which they can smell over a mile away). However, this doesn't work if your neighbor is hanging up bird feeders (aka high protein bear food), so please work with your neighbors to enure everyone is doing their part.
(p.s. a bear is not coming out of the woods for a compost pile - they will check it out if they are in the neighborhood anyway for, say, birdseeed, but the main entree is that concentrated protein in the bird seed. A compost bin is a side dish).

2. If a bear has already been in your yard multiple times, that means it sees your yard as a non-threatening place, which means somehow, probably without meaning to, you have made it comfortable for the bear to be there - possibly by not making noise, possibly by having a food source available for it, or possibly by a nearby neighbor providing a food source. Make the bear uncomfortable by yelling, screaming, banging pots and pans. IT may not leave instantly, but it will remember that it was unpleasant to be in your yard.

3. Soak a rag in ammonia, leave it in a bucket next to your compost bin and/or chicken coop. Bear have extremely sensitive noses and this will make them want to STAY FAR AWAY from that smell. You will likely have to re-soak the rag every 1- 2 weeks.

5. If you have not yet done so, put an electric fence around your chicken coop. Some folks will even put it around their compost, but that may be a bit much cost-wise just for a compost bin.

6. If you know a bear is in your neighborhood, keep meat, bones, fish and sweet smelling fruit such as melon peels etc out of the compost. Those can be buried, or dropped off at a compost facility or transfer station (likely for a fee).

7. Consider giving your compost pile a rest for a while until the bear activity dies down. Here is a complete list of local drop off spots for food scraps. You can also bring food scraps to any transfer station in Vermont (for a fee):
Compost drop off info: http://www.cvswmd.org/food-scrap-drop-off-sites.html

8. If you do decide to keep composting, do not forget to add THREE TIMES as many "browns" (carbon rich materials like leaves, wood shavings, dry animal bedding, etc) as "greens" (food scraps). This will aid in the composting process and signicantly cut down on odors, making your pile uninteresting to the 4-leggeds.

A list of transfer stations in the CVSWMD where you can drop off food scraps: http://www.cvswmd.org/transfer-stations.html

Composting in Bear Country tips: http://www.bearsmart.com/docs/Composting-in-Bear-Country-Squamish.pdf

Black Bear incident reporting: https://anrweb.VT.gov/FWD/FW/WildlifeBearReport.aspx