Are there bears in the woods?

Shredded bark

By Bruce Amundson

Our home is on the lower level of Blue Heron Reserve in Innis Arden. During the first two weeks in October when we were on vacation we returned to find three young pine and fir trees ravished - claw scrapings on trunks and branches, 1/2 to 3/4 inch branches were broken off and branches were shredded. 

Then three days ago there was new evidence of damage to a young fir - branches broken off and shredded.

Shredded branches

For anyone who has hiked the mountains of the Rocky Mountain West, you know it is easy to recognize evidence of bear activity on trees - vertical claw marks on trunks, broken branches, etc. 

What we noted is definite evidence of bear activity, and it is similar to what we experienced about 10 years ago when we also returned from vacation to find a white pine tree that had been damaged by a bear - long claw marks on the trunk, broken branches.

Since there is no other critter in our domain that can do this, we are confident that there is current black bear presence in Shoreline and Innis Arden. We are curious whether anyone else has experienced bear damage, sitings, evidence of scat or tracks, etc. during the past 2-3 weeks.

Branches broken off

I am not posting this to frighten residents. Bears rarely endanger humans. But what is remarkable about our current experience is that two visits within a few weeks suggests that a bear would seem to be “resident” in our local forested areas rather than just passing through our reserve (as happened a few years ago when a bear was tracked for days moving east across north Seattle and Shoreline).

It’s pretty exciting to have these animals in our domain in addition to the wide variety of wildlife that also calls Shoreline home.

If you have noted any evidence of bear activity, we’d appreciate hearing from you.