
{"id":18423,"date":"2011-05-26T08:20:26","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T12:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=18423"},"modified":"2011-05-26T09:06:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T13:06:09","slug":"bear-spotted-in-chapel-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/05\/26\/bear-spotted-in-chapel-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear spotted in Chapel Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_18424\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18424\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/05\/26\/bear-spotted-in-chapel-hill\/bear-haha1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18424\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/bear-haha1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"bear-haha1\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18424\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/bear-haha1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/bear-haha1-113x84.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/bear-haha1-150x113.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO COURTESY OF THOMAS BYTHELL. A black bear causes a stir in the Friday Center parking lot in Chapel Hill on Monday. <\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n<strong>By Joshua Lucas<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>CHAPEL HILL  \u00e2\u20ac\u201d A small black bear caused a stir Monday morning as he ambled through parts of southeast Chapel Hill, including UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Finley Golf Course and the N.C. Botanical Garden.<\/p>\n<p>The young black bear \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a witness estimated its weight at no more than 250 lbs and its height no taller than 4 feet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was spotted shortly after 10 a.m. by some UNC workers in the Chapel Hill Transit park-and-ride lot at the Friday Center off N.C. 54.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The bear just literally ran right in front of us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Thomas Bythell, a UNC forester and ground services supervisor. Bythell and colleague Chris Koltz got some blurry, Bigfoot-style photos of the animal as it darted from the parking lot toward Finley.<\/p>\n<p>The wayward ursine was seen at about the same time by golfers on the links at Finley \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the third hole, from what we were told,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Chapel Hill Police Lt. Kevin Gunter. From there it padded up to a wooded area behind Glenwood Elementary School, along Highland Woods Road.<\/p>\n<p>A resident of that neighborhood reported the animal to Chapel Hill police, Gunter said, but took pains to note that it was not acting violent and seemed calm.<\/p>\n<p>Visitors and workers at the N.C. Botanical Garden on Old Mason Farm Road got a visit from the lumbering stranger after 11 a.m., they said. He just seemed to be exploring.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He saw a lot of greenery, I guess,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d garden employee Shanna Oberreiter said.<\/p>\n<p>The animal was last seen Monday moving southward through the Kings Mill Road area.<\/p>\n<p>One potential home for the bear nearby would be UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reserve land south and east of where it had been seen. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind if he found his way into the biological reserve,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bythell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got lots of land to live on and things to eat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Chapel Hill officials contacted the N.C. Wildlife Commission, but said there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really nothing to be done \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or worry about \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if the bear isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t threatening people or damaging property. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a wild animal,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gunter said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just kind of meandering through, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eventually going to make its way back to where it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>But why did the bear show up near people to begin with? One biologist said it may just be part of the natural population cycle of the bears, not an indication of any change or encroachment on the part of humans.<\/p>\n<p>When young male bears become adults, they typically seek new areas away from where they grew up to call home. That searching can involve some amount of exploration, said Beth Gardner, a quantitative wildlife population biologist at N.C. State University.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Young males are known to sort of disperse, as we call it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They hang out with their mothers for a while and then get pushed out.<\/p>\n<p>The black bear \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the only kind of bear native to North Carolina \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is more common on the coast and in the mountains, but is not unheard of in the Piedmont, as Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sighting and a weekend bear-spotting in Garner attest. A black bear has also been sited recently in Greensboro. <\/p>\n<p>If you see the bear, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t panic, Gardner said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you see a bear, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good to keep your distance, make yourself known. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re basically not going to be aggressive unless they get spooked or scared.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Otherwise, stay where you are, back up slowly, and keep your distance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A small black bear caused a stir in Chapel Hill Monday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":18424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18423"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18485,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18423\/revisions\/18485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}