Vermont Couple Can Hardly Bear the Ursine Invader Sitting in Their Hammock

Black bears are getting so they are downright comfortable around humans. We have both sorts of bears here in our part of the Great Land, and while it's not unusual to see a griz, we see black bears more often. Last fall, I got up in the middle of the night, for the reason we aging fellows frequently have to get up in the night, and a black bear was sitting on our deck, looking for all the world like a big dog. I went for a gun - black bear is good eating and the season is open year around - but he bailed before I got back with a shootin' iron.

Not everybody who has these critters around is interested in eating black bears, and that may account for some bears so blithely hanging around in people's yards. This sure appears to be the case in Vermont, where a couple investigated a noise to find a black bear comfortably relaxing in their hammock:

Noah and Kristen Dweck have seen a number of black bears around their home in Vermont but this was a first: a bear relaxing on their hammock.
Noah Dweck took iPhone video of two young bears in their yard in Waitsfield on Tuesday with one sitting on the swinging hammock before he shooed them away.
“It was adorable. It was a funny sight,” he told The Associated Press.
Dweck said he was sitting at a desk with the screen doors open in their home near the Sugarbush ski resort when he heard the jingling of the hammock. He then realized there was no wind.

You want to be careful investigating strange noises, summer or winter, country or city. But fortunately, nobody was hurt, human or ursine:

“So immediately I knew it was the bears,” he said. He ran upstairs and looked out the window and saw one bear looking curiously at the other bear who was hanging around on the hammock, he said. He took some iphone video and then scared the bears away. Burlington TV station WPTZ first reported on the sighting.
“We live in a very active bear basin. The bears are very used to human contact so I’m assuming they have found other people’s hammocks before,” Dweck said. “To be honest, it was pretty impressive that he didn’t fall off, or she didn’t fall off the hammock, and kind of knew how to do it. It was quite funny to see.”

There's evidence, too:

Noah and Kristen Dweck have seen a number of black bears around their home in Vermont but this was a first: a bear relaxing on their hammock.https://t.co/gSYxudwW3i pic.twitter.com/kJSyHhBqUy
— WSPA 7NEWS (@WSPA7) June 12, 2024

The Dwecks seem to have handled this all right; there's nothing wrong with the video since the still shot in the tweet makes it look as though it was shot from safely inside their house, and while there's no indication as to how he frightened the bear away, nobody was injured.

Even so, the Dwecks are hopefully exercising some caution, as the bears are likely to still be in the area. We wouldn't want any area officials to be forced to become the bear-er of bad news to the Dweck family.

California Woman Killed by Black Bear in State's First Documented Fatal Attack

While bears are usually found this time of year foraging on their traditional foods, like bluebearies, they will make use of any food source they find. From the time they emerge from their winter dens until they enter them again in the fall, bears are focused on eating, without paws, to pack on the layer of fat that will bear them through their winter sleep. If any humans in their range leave food around, be it in our garbage or just by improperly storing a pic-a-nic basket, it won't take furever for a bruin to find it. But we humans, with a modicum of preparation, should be able to deal with any ursine unpleasantness; we do, after all, have the right to bear arms.

This seems appropriate.