CUMBERLAND — When Harry Spiker found out this past fall that there was a bear under the porch at a home on Beckman’s Peninsula at Deep Creek Lake, he wasn’t surprised.
“It’s the same bear that was under a porch with cubs two years ago,” said Spiker, a biologist with the Maryland Wildlife & Heritage Service.
In 2011, the 327-pound sow spent the winter and gave birth to cubs under the porch of a home in the Stilwater subdivision, another Deep Creek Lake community about 2 miles away made up mostly of upscale vacation homes.
This year, the bear weighed 353 pounds and was recently drugged and moved, along with four new cubs, to her own second home, that being the nearby Savage River State Forest.
“The homeowner was at his place last November and heard something under the porch,” Spiker said. “We checked, discovered it was a radio-collared bear, and he agreed to let her stay there.”
Spiker applauded the decision.
“That meant we didn’t have to drug her twice, once to move her away and again this spring to check her and her cubs.”
Spiker and his crew are halfway through the bear-den checking season.
“We’ve worked four bears already and have five to go,” he said Thursday.
Besides the porch bear, bruins have been checked in Garrett, Washington and Frederick counties.
A 300-pound sow was checked near the south end of Deep Creek Lake, but had no cubs.
The Frederick County bear, near Myersville, was 225 pounds, 6 years old and had three cubs. “This is her third litter of three cubs each,” Spiker said.
Spiker said when that bear was first trapped six years ago it had a hunting broadhead in its shoulder. “That is totally healed now,” he said.
In Washington County, a bear was worked Wednesday on Sideling Hill. That sow also had three cubs. The 9-year-old female weighed 230 pounds.
The sows and the cubs are in excellent shape, according to Spiker.
“There were plenty of acorns to eat last fall so the sows went into the dens in great physical condition,” he said.
Dens this year range from under large rocks to beside large rocks to up against logs in the open woods, according to the biologist.
Three of the five bears remaining on the checklist are in Allegany County — one on the Green Ridge State Forest, one near Rocky Gap State Park and one high on Dan’s Mountain.
The other two are in Garrett County.
“We try to maintain collars on 20 bears at any one time,” Spiker said.
Currently, 16 female bears are collared, but others will be captured and fitted with the tracking devices this summer.
Spiker said there are some bears already out of dens.
“The usual progression is that male bears come out first, then the sows with year-old cubs and then the sows with new cubs,” Spiker said.
He expects the last of the emerging bears to be out and about by the first week of April.
Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
Latest news
Deep Creek Lake: Same bear, different cubs
- Latest news
-
-
U.S., Taliban to start talks on ending 12-year conflict
The Taliban and the U.S. said Tuesday they will hold talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, as the international coalition formally handed over control of the country’s security to the Afghan army and police.
-
Jury selected in Bedford County manslaughter case
A Bedford man charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a western Bedford County man he called his best friend will attempt to convince a jury that he should not be held responsible for his death.
-
Grim: ‘I want to see things through’
Mayor Brian Grim made it official Tuesday when he filed the required paperwork to seek a second term as mayor of Cumberland.
-
Canal Place authority pursuing plan to develop branding, marketing strategy
The Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority voted Tuesday to pursue a plan of action to develop a branding and marketing strategy for the tourism hub and surrounding Canal Place Heritage Area.
-
Historic bell to toll for West Virginia's 150th anniversary
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — A bell that rang on June 20, 1863, to herald the news of West Virginia achieving statehood will ring again to mark the state’s 150th anniversary.
-
New York man injured in 40-foot fall from Gunter Hotel
FROSTBURG — A 53-year-old New York man was found unconscious on Main Street late Monday after he apparently fell from the third-floor balcony area of the Gunter Hotel, according to the Frostburg Police Department.
-
Local doctor named West Virginia’s most loyal
The West Virginia University School of Medicine Alumni Association has named a local physician as its 2013 Most Loyal West Virginia Physician.
-
Scouts reunite after 55 years
Eighteen boys left Cumberland on July 4, 1958, to travel by train to Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, N.M., for a two-week adventure of a lifetime. Fifty-five years later, 10 men of Explorer Post 10 reunited at the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg on April 27.
-
City police arrest suspect in gunshot incident
CUMBERLAND — Gunshots were heard early Sunday morning in the area of Furnace and Valley streets and Cumberland Police found a handgun nearby after taking Gerald Allen Moore, 23, of Cumberland into custody.
-
Hospitals release information for safety report
Maryland hospitals had fewer reports of serious adverse events in fiscal 2012 compared to the year before but an increase in suicides, according to the Office of Health Care Quality in Baltimore’s annual Hospital Patient Safety Report.
- More Latest news Headlines
-
U.S., Taliban to start talks on ending 12-year conflict
