Bear family routinely visits North Carolina man just to say hello
Patrick Conley lives in Asheville, North Carolina. And while we might not think of the city as a place one would encounter bears, the beautiful mountains surrounding the area means that they are, in fact, frequent visitors to residential areas.
For the most part, they’re pretty scared of humans (which is why people should avoid feeding them at all costs – their fear of us is a GOOD thing for safety). But that doesn’t mean they don’t become regulars at some places.
In fact, some “city” bears become so accustomed to both people and cars that they don’t run away anymore. Still, attacks are rare (but not unheard of).
Conley’s home seems to be a favorite stop for one particular bear family. His YouTube page is largely dedicated to their visits, which began in the late summer of 2017.
He explained why the bears are so common in his “neck of the woods”:
“They’d come by about once a week while foraging for acorns, berries, insects, &c. All Beaverdam bears are ‘habituated’, which means they are used to seeing humans and mostly ignore them as they go about their business. Unfortunately, many are ‘food conditioned’, which is NOT a good thing. Too many people forget to secure their garbage carts, or leave pet food and birdseed out. Once a bear relies on humans to provide food, it loses its natural ability to forage and can become aggressive.”
We don’t know to what extent Conley has tried dissuading the bears, but if he’s put in the effort, it hasn’t really worked. They come by so often that he’s given the momma bear and her cubs names:
“I finally got around to giving them names. The mother is Maïté, her hefty son Maurice and daughters Simone, who now has a scar on the bridge of her snout, and finally Solange, the shy one.”
In one of his most-viewed videos, posted 2 years ago, mom stopped by for a visit with the cubs.
He described the order of their appearance:
“The mother, Maïté, is the first one on the porch followed by her daughter Simone and chunky son Maurice. Solange, the shy one, stayed on the stairs.”
And they really do make themselves at home!
They roam the porch, check the grill for leftovers (of which there are none), and see if there’s anything they might like to chew before heading off to their next location (presumably to search for food).
We don’t know how thrilled we’d be to know that black bears could stop by our house at will, but Conley seems not to mind.
The video has now been viewed over 1.6 million times since it was uploaded in December of 2017.
We don’t know exactly where Conley is while filming, but the angle makes it look like he’s on the porch. We’d like to assume he’s at least behind a window though.
He greets Maïté with a friendly “good morning,” which she takes as permission to lumber up onto the porch.
She’s huge!
She makes sure her cubs are close behind and she heads for the grill.
Simone is next, sniffing the air to see if there’s anything worth eating up there.
It’s starting to be quite a party! Conley gives any bear that looks his way a greeting.
Simone then heads over to Conley – a little too close for his taste.
And, lucky for him, the bear has some respect because she backs off when he tells her she’s too close.
But wait! As Simone walks away, we see Conley’s hand – he DOES appear to be out on the porch!
At the very least, there’s nothing between him and the bears!
There will be no bear petting today though. The foursome amble away, unfed – and looking a bit annoyed about it.
Conley updated fans last year saying the bears have now split up, but he still gets individual visits:
“They went their separate ways around May 2018. Simone is the only one I see anymore, at least once a week. She’s now wearing a tracking collar as she had the misfortune of ‘volunteering’ for The North Carolina Urban/Suburban Black Bear Study. Maurice used to live nearby but I haven’t seen him in a while.”
His latest videos show Simone as a regular visitor to this day and a new bear family with 4 cubs has decided to make his home a stop on their neighborhood tours as well!
That’s wild!
Be sure to scroll down below to see the original bear family’s daring front porch visit.
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