Our backyard neighbours

We came home the other night to Boru barking his fool head off and heard a rustling in the trees far too loud to be any raccoon... we got the kids into the house and yes, lovely... there was a mid-sized black bear beside our deck with a big black bag of garbage. Mmmm, nice - nicer still when he tried to take the garbage bag up the tree with him. Jason gave him a number of shots in the butt with his pellet gun; this may have annoyed him, but that's about it. Finally Samuel scared him away with the pots and pans. So then the next day we find these three... Beautiful black mama bear and her two little cubs. One black, one brown. I assure you I have my telephoto lens on. Yes, I'm probably still too close - but I could have run into the house pretty quickly.

Check out Mama bear's claws!