A Duluth Woman Found A Black Bear Den Under Her Front Porch
I have to be honest in that I wish I was a bear sometimes so I could hibernate and fall asleep until Spring, but unfortunately I don't have that option. But one pretty savvy city black bear has managed to find a pretty cushy place to lay his or her head for the long winter season. They have dug a hole to gain access to a deep tunnel under a porch of a home in the Congdon area of Duluth.
Jeanette Anderson was not aware of the bear or the hole that it had dug in their front yard because they always use the back door entrance to their house. They found out about the bear from a neighbor who had seen it crawl into a hole under their porch. The hole is about 24 inches across and was dug out into a hill along a concrete retaining wall. It goes back between boulders that were likely blasted out to make way for the foundation of the house over 100 years ago.
Anderson said to the Duluth News Tribune (paid subscription site) :
We don’t know how far back it goes. But there wasn’t any hole here before. … Somehow, that bear seemed to know that if it dug down a little she’d find this huge cavern under the yard. She has quite the little underground apartment down there.
Anderson has said that she does not mind the bear staying under her home since it only seems to surface at night, but the bear has been keeping awfully busy as evidenced by pizza boxes and random food items scattered all over her yard. She is also fairly certain that her neighbors have been feeding the bear and that is why it has not gone into hibernation yet.
She did consult the DNR but was not too keen on their suggestions which one was to flood the den with water and the other was to get an air horn to scare it out of the den. Anderson said she does not want to do that because at this point the hole and tunnel is too big to fill back up before the snow flies. Anderson said she is more worried about people bothering the bear than vice versa. She went on to say that the bear can stay if it wants and she is going to try and protect the bear so it can go hibernate in peace.
This woman is amazing first of all I would be terrified to know I have a bear sleeping under my porch, plus I have two little dogs that would not think twice about messing with a bear. Let's hope that this poor bear can get its fill of food and go under the porch and hibernate until Spring where it will remain safe for now.