Rumors are a-brewin' of a far-ranging bear
By MARK DAVIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/22/04
He's the rustle in the leaves, the clatter in the trash can, the baying of the dog.
He's Gwinnett's little blue-eyed bear, and he's at large.
Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Snellville: Since late spring, folks say they've seen him in back yards, at bird feeders, under the canopy of the neighbor's hardwoods. He moves fast, rolling over grassy lawns like a little black eight-ball speeding across green felt.
But he (if it is a "he") is as much rumor as reality: No one has taken a picture of this Ursus americanus. He exists, so far, only in the pages of police reports and state wildlife records — a bear, black in color, blue in the eyes.
Yes, blue. Ask Don May of Lilburn, who says he took an unblinking look Sunday at Young Blue Eyes.
Night had fallen, crisp and welcome, when Missy the dog started clamoring in the rear of May's home on Jamestown Court just off Arcado Road. She was making so much noise that May grabbed a flashlight and stepped outside to investigate.
He swung the beam one way, then another, then focused it at a thick pine tree 30 feet away.
"I saw nothing but blue eyes looking back at me," May recalled, Wednesday. "I knew it was a bear."
OK, a bear. But blue eyes?
"They looked blue in the light," he said.
May stepped back inside, telling his wife, Sheila, to keep an eye on the three kids. Then he stepped back outside, flipping on the rear flood lights just as the creature ambled across the back yard.
"He was just taking his good ol' time," said May, who described an animal 3 feet long from shoulder to rear. "I didn't bother him anymore than he bothered me."
May was bothered enough to call 911, and the cops showed up, along with county animal control officers. By then, said May, the bear was gone — departed, he thinks, to a nearby boggy area where a bear could easily hide.
But he didn't leave without a trace.
Monday morning, some residents living along the street awoke to see their industrial-sized trash cans turned over. Debris littered the end of Jamestown Court, a one-fifth-mile stretch of blacktop that ends in a cul-de-sac. Neighbors stood in their yards, comparing fears, and agreed: No dog made this mess.
"It couldn't have been done by anything other than a large animal," said Carol Watson, who also lives on Jamestown Court. Watson, who provides day care for four young children in her home, turned a worried eye toward the site where the cans had been upended.
"I will admit it," she said. "I am a little more cautious now."
A little caution is a good thing, said Beth Brown, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources. The department, which urges people to leave bears alone, has fielded a number of calls in the last few months about a bruin rambling about south Gwinnett. Officials think it's the same creature, she said.
Bears in the 'burbs are almost routine these days.
Some get the traveling urge, such as the 450-pound male that came to Gwinnett in January. A tag in his ear showed that he had come from Tennessee, possibly following the Chattahoochee River south into suburban Atlanta. He got as far as I-85, where a speeding Mitsubishi ended his traveling days. Now, he's stopping customers at Bass Pro Shops in Duluth, which paid to have him mounted.
Last month, Cumming cops trapped a yearling cub that for weeks had dined well in residents' trash cans. He had come, perhaps, out of necessity, driven to trash and travel by older, larger bears. In any case, the young fellow fared better than Gwinnett's big bruin. Knocked out with a tranquilizer dart, he awoke in the mountains of Georgia — hung over, perhaps, but alive.
This latest bear likely is another youngster, said Haven Barnhill, a state wildlife biologist. Based on May's description, Barnhill estimates the Lilburn wanderer is less than 2 years old, following his nose from trash can to bird feeder to dog bowl.
"He could be back in the mountains in a couple of days," said Barnhill. "It's not a big deal."
Tell that to Carol Pass, who lives on Jamestown Court. Tuesday, she found a torn plastic foam food container in her back yard, chewed and punctured by what appear to be large teeth.
"I'm not nervous about it," said Pass, who admitted that she left a Tupperware container holding a slice of roast on a stump for the little guy, just in case he was hungry. "But I don't want to encounter one."
The bear apparently feels the same way about you, ma'am. He may be at large, but he's laying low |
