Social media warfare rages this week on Pine Mountain Club bulletin boards. Words ranging from shocking to merely insulting are being used on both sides of the debate about what is happening with bears this month. One sideline wit has a theory about the strategy of the ‘Bear Terrorists’: “They will get the people at each other’s throats so they kill each other off, then the bears will swoop in to claim all the refrigerators and freezers.”

For those whose homes have been broken into and damaged, having wild…(please see below to view full stories and photographs)

Photo captions:

Adorable when young, terrifying as adults—habituated bears are now causing Panic in PMC II

Tejon Conservancy’s wildlife cams caught this black bear mother with two cubs in the forest. But what happens once they smell cherry pie?

The outside of the Zieglers’ home was torn apart by an angry bear that first tried entering the couple’s bedroom through a screen door. A cherry pie was on the kitchen counter….

Top, Pamela Jansen’s front door was broken in half. Bears broke in four times. Now plywood has been put on the windows and the broken door. The family had to leave for a week. DFW put out two bear traps in PMC.

James Weinstock says he give peanuts to an injured squirrel named Luke and bird seed for the birds. He said he does not leave it out overnight. He carries it out in the morning, puts it in a dish, and “it is gone by 10 a.m.,” he says, adding that none is given to the bears.

‘Larry’ has only three legs, after being caught in a leg trap when he was a cub. Weinstock lets Larry sit quietly in his back garden, and says he considers the bear a friend.

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This is part of the July 21, 2017 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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