Bear attack!!!

We woke up to a glorious day on July 2nd. Then we noticed that the bird feeder that I put sesame seeds in had been knocked down and was actually outside the fence. I brought it inside the fence and didn't think anything of it at the time.

Then I started to think -- what could have done that? A raccoon? But it would have to be a very large and strong raccoon. A bear? No, couldn't possibly be.

When I was picking up the bird feeder, I noticed that the top of the fence was all dirty, and some of the fence was bent down. Wow! I don't think a raccoon would do that. This is making me think it was a bear...

So I went and looked at the bird feeder and the fence again... This was a big scratch on the top of the bird feeder. The feeder is made of soft pine, but that is a large span for all the claw marks. There is a lighter claw mark to the right of the very visible scratch. Hmmm, so 5 claw marks.

This is at one end of the feeder. Some claw scratches and a tooth mark! Now that is definitely not a raccoon!

Hmm, more impressions - is this from teeth or claws?

So I refilled the bird feeder and hung it up. The ^^ characters indicated where the biggest gouges on the feeder are. The other side of the top of the feeder is hinged for refilling, in case you are wondering.

A neighbour who knows more about these things was over and he said it was a bear. He asked if there was any hair around, and I said I didn't see any. He said a bear will often leave hair around, which is how you can know it was a bear.

UPDATE: July 4th

We woke up this morning and saw the bird feeder like this. So it looked like the bear had tried to get the bird food again. It was obviously a fairly good size bear to be able to stand up and swat the feeder off the hooks, but not quite big enough to be able to grab it and pull it off...

I went out to see if there was any hair, and sure enough - there was hair this time. I decided it would be more prudent to take the bird feeder down, as there is lots of food around for the birds in the summer.