November 29, 2007Bears in the backyard: Have you seen one?It used to be big news to spot a white-tailed deer in town. No more. They're pretty much everywhere, which is why more than 20 localities even have special urban archery seasons in an effort to keep deer from totally taking over. Now there's a new critter moving into suburbia. Bears. Two years ago I spent the better part of Memorial Day running around Roanoke's Old Southwest with animal control officers who were trying to wrangle a juvenile bear. A similar scene played out in another part of Roanoke this spring. Then there was that infamous case of the bear that got into a hospital in Franklin County a few years ago. Get on the outskirts of the city -- or any community of the region -- and bear sightings are becoming more and more common. So someone here had the idea of plotting sightings on searchable map, and that project is now up and running in our Datasphere area. Datasphere guru Matt Chittum goes into a few more details in this blog entry on the topic. The short of it is, if you've seen a bear in an unusual spot, they'd like to hear from you. Just contact Chittum through the blog and provide the details, and pictures if you've got them. Again, the key word here is unusual. The yearling I saw this summer in rural Botetourt County? Not unusual. The sow you saw digging through your trash in a Botetourt subdivision? Unusual. Make sense? Obviously, denning time is near so there won't be too many sightings after a couple of weeks. But they're looking for previous sightings, too. |
About this blog
While growing up in rural Southern Oregon, Mark Taylor developed a passion for the outdoors while he and his younger brother tagged along with their father on fishing, hunting and camping adventures. Graduating from Northwestern University in 1988, Taylor spent four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy based in Norfolk before moving into journalism. After five years writing about the military for a Norfolk-based publishing company, he became the outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times in 1998. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and twin daughters. .....Advertisement.....
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