Black Bear

OAKLAND -- As a photography major at a Washington college, Coty Jones is used to taking tough shots. But yesterday, on the first day of Maryland's black bear season, Jones shouldered her rifle, steadied her nerves and brought down a 615-pound bear, breaking the three-year-old state record by 129 pounds. On its hind legs, the bear would have barely squeezed through a doorway, its ears grazing the ceiling. It took eight men two hours to drag it the length of five football fields. "He didn't look that big until he got close," said Jones, a Hoopers Island resident and junior at Corcoran College of Art and Design.

50 years ago:Diplomas were presented to 146 young men and women at the 49th annual graduation exercises of the Westminster High School Friday evening, June 10. Dr. P. M. Robinson, Brethren minister of Hagerstown, delivered the address to graduates. -- Democratic Advocate, June 17, 1949.75 years ago:Tuesday afternoon while ploughing his field near Oakland Mills, Woodrow Sullivan, one of our prominent farmers of that locality, was surprised to hear something walking near him. Looking back, he was almost scared out of his shoes to see a big, black bear following in the corn row about 100 feet behind the plow.

It has been more than a week since Owings Mills has caught a glimpse of the Black Bear. When last seen July 6, he was feasting on wild berries in a back yard in McDonogh Township.Bears in Maryland are more and more accustomed to people. From their range in Western Maryland, black bears regularly visit campers. But besides Owings Mills, the only other place to report a bear on its downtown streets so far this summer was the mountain town of Frostburg. Why would a black bear wander so far?If the Black Bear of Owings Mills is a yearling, sent away by his mother to stake out his own territory, as state authorities suspect, he has wandered more than the usual 150-mile radius.

THE BLACK BEARS of Western Maryland are sleeping now. Tucked into shallow caves and under shelters formed by fallen trees, the state's largest animals are hibernating, resting up for a new year that's sure to include more close encounters with humans.Last year, Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) personnel were overwhelmed by complaints about the bears. Bears turned up in garages and backyards, they climbed atop cars, they snooped in basements and tore up farmers' fields in search of food.

I heard a crash in the trees along the Youghiogheny River in Garrett County last week. I was standing in the river, fishing with a buddy. It had been a pretty day, and now the sun was starting to disappear behind some fir trees, and I heard heavy thrashing coming from the woods. I doubted it was another human being; a human being would likely stay on the trail that runs along the Youghiogheny and not make all that racket. It wasn't a squirrel; I know the sound of a squirrel banging through branches and brush, and that wasn't a squirrel.

Preliminary counts from all counties show that firearms hunters across the state took 12,757 whitetail and sika deer on opening day, about 2 percent fewer than last year."

Jim Galbreath went to the front door of his house in northern Harford County about 9: 30 p.m. Tuesday to call the family's cat -- and instead found a black bear weighing about 150 pounds walking around the front yard."

State wildlife officials are being asked to consider a limited hunt in parts of Allegany and Garrett counties to control a black bear population that is increasingly damaging crops and livestock in the Maryland mountains.The proposal -- which would require General Assembly approval -- is one of three recommendations a citizens task force is expected to issue today to address nuisance bear problems in those counties. Public meetings on the recommendations are to be conducted next month in Accident, Timonium, Easton and Annapolis.

Maryland's black bear population is healthy and thriving, state wildlife experts report, which is good news for all of us.Nothing so embodies our atavistic sense of wilderness, the kinship with nature's other creatures, than the bear. Indian cultures saw their humanness mirrored in the people-sized mammal that sometimes stands on two legs; the black bear's paw print looks remarkably like that of a flat-footed man wearing moccasins.The black bear is quintessentially American, as its scientific name ursus Americanus denotes.

It wasn't until the black mass on the gravel road began ambling toward her that Sherry Frantz began to run."I couldn't quite figure out what it was at first. I'm nearsighted anyway. But when it began coming toward me, it became obvious I was about to have my first face-to-face with a black bear," she recounted.Ms. Frantz, 44, a native of Garrett County, knew that one of the basic rules of meeting bears face-to-face is not to run. "My head knew to either stay put or walk away slowly. But my legs wouldn't listen," she said.

George Miller is a double threat. On March 27, he caught and released the striped bass that accompanies this column. A few days later, he caught a 6-pound, 24-inch rainbow trout at the Daniels area of Patapsco Valley State Park. Not too shabby. Needless to say, with two weeks to go before the start of the spring striped bass season, the big fish are in. Nice how that works, huh? There are already reports of fish just below the 50-inch mark being caught at all the usual spots. Miller, who lives in Glen Arm and works at the McCormick plant in Hunt Valley, caught his fish just off Breezy Point while trolling a chartreuse-and-white parachute.

Two killed over weekend in separate shootings Baltimore City police reported two fatal shootings over the weekend. Names of the victims were being withheld pending notification of family members. No arrests had been made. Shortly before midnight Saturday, Northern District police responded to a report of a man shot in the 2400 block of Loyola Southway in the Greenspring community and found the victim bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. About 1 a.m. Saturday, in the Broadway East section of East Baltimore, a man was shot in the head in the 1800 block of N. Regester St. and was pronounced dead at the scene by Fire Department medics.

OAKLAND - A confession: At this year's black bear hunt, I am rooting for the bear. Not every bear. Just one. With each black bear brought to the check station at Mount Nebo Wildlife Management Area, I hold my breath. Will the animal being weighed and inspected by state biologists be the one I held in my arms a little more than two years ago? So far, the bear known to the state as 472C4E7628, most likely a resident of Allegany County, has escaped hunters. The male bear must weigh about 200 pounds now, but when I saw him in April 2006, he and his three tiny den mates were nestled around their 238-pound mother, who was taking a nap induced by two tranquilizer darts.

A young male black bear that had been spotted for more than a week in the Arbutus-Halethorpe area of Baltimore County was captured last night after Department of Natural Resources police shot it with a tranquilizer gun as it roamed in the backyard of a house in Arbutus. The 1 1/2 -year-old, 100-pound bear ran a short distance after being hit, then collapsed as the drug took effect in the 5200 block of Larlin Road, not far from the Beltway. The animal was not injured. After being examined, the bear was placed in a circular bear-capture cage, doused with water and transported by DNR vehicle to the more isolated wilds of Western Maryland, where it was to be released.

Teresa Oleszewski was driving to work one morning early last week when, she says, she saw a small creature amble onto the road about a block from her house in Shady Side. "We have deer and foxes and opossums and all other creatures," she said of the woods near her home. But she knew she was seeing something out of the ordinary. "It was just a little black bear," she said. It was, she added, about the size of a big dog. Hers was just one of many sightings of the young bear last week in southern Anne Arundel County, where it apparently arrived after making its way north from St. Mary's and Calvert counties in the past two weeks, state Department of Natural Resources officials said.

Obfuscating torture is no real defense Neither President Bush nor his nominee to be U.S. attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, nor anyone else in the Bush administration is willing to publicly answer the simple question: Is waterboarding (an interrogation method that simulates drowning) a form of torture? The excuses they have given for their reticence are themselves tortuous: Mr. Bush has argued that terrorists would get an advantage if he answered the question, and Mr. Mukasey cited his concern that to answer would put interrogators' "careers or freedom at risk" ("Mukasey hearing turns testy," Oct. 19)

OAKLAND -- As a photography major at a Washington college, Coty Jones is used to taking tough shots. But yesterday, on the first day of Maryland's black bear season, Jones shouldered her rifle, steadied her nerves and brought down a 615-pound bear, breaking the three-year-old state record by 129 pounds. On its hind legs, the bear would have barely squeezed through a doorway, its ears grazing the ceiling. It took eight men two hours to drag it the length of five football fields. "He didn't look that big until he got close," said Jones, a Hoopers Island resident and junior at Corcoran College of Art and Design.

Beth Alt's husband, Jeff, was right: Hiking in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range was just what she needed while grieving the suicide death of her brother Mike. With each glance, the Cincinnati resident grew more immersed with everything the trail had to offer: The tall pines that stretched to the sky, the still lakes reflecting jutted, snow-frosted mountains, the black bear lurking toward her. The black bear lurking toward her? If you go Beth and Jeff Alt will be at the REI in Timonium, 63 W. Aylesbury Road, at 7 tonight to talk about his book.

GREEN RIDGE STATE FOREST -- Scarcely bigger than a kitten, the black bear cub tucked away with its slumbering mother was as anonymous as any other woodland creature Tuesday morning. By lunchtime, the cub had a new identity - microchip 472C4E7628 - as did each of its three siblings, joining supermarket produce, express packages and automobiles in a world where everything is inventoried and coded. Their mother gave up her anonymity last month. Decked out in a white radio collar, the 238-pound sow broadcasts her position to wildlife biologists who manage the state's 500-plus bears.

OAKLAND -- It was a school morning, but Sierra Stiles wasn't gathering her books. Instead, in the pre-dawn blackness, the 8-year-old pulled on a camouflage shirt, pants and boots, and grabbed a high-powered hunting rifle. The third-grader from Western Maryland had beaten out 1,992 applicants - mostly men - to be selected through a state lottery as one of only 200 to obtain hunting licenses for Maryland's second black bear hunt in a half-century. Hiding with her father behind trees on her family's farm, Sierra used a .243-caliber rifle to shoot a 211-pound male black bear yesterday morning, the first kill of the season, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.