Tracking Down Bears In Eastern North Carolina

  I recently spent a couple of days photographing the bears of Eastern North Carolina.  The trip was successful and rewarding beyond my best expectations.  Hard to say, but I would guess I saw almost two dozen different bears during the two days.

The Eastern NC Region is home to the densest population of black bears and also some of the largest in all of North America.  Much of this is due to the mild climate that permits them to have a shorter hibernation, allowing them to feast year round in the corn and wheat farm fields.  Additionally, about 800,000 acres of sanctuaries and several National Wildlife refuges provide areas where the bears can roam freely.  Bears of the area have become so popular that various types of driving and other special bear tours are offered.

My Bear Photo Choices From The Trip

Gotta Itch!

Nice photo op experience that speaks for itself.

Splish, Splash, I Was Takin’ A Bath

Although this was the most spectacular experience of my trip, the early morning back light and my slow camera lens made for images that needed a lot of processing just to get fairly good images.  

So here’s the story.  Bears were spotted at a long distance (shown in the first photo/first gallery above ‘common type of view….’), so, I decided to walk toward them.  Black bears of the area are used to people, but they are not interested in letting people get too close; so, they slowly moved out of sight.  I walked on and got to a point where I could peek around a corner where I saw them not too far away. 

But!  There was a canal right next to me and I heard this tremendous splashing, but the source was hidden by the tall grasses.  As I eased over to the edge, there was a large bear, 30 feet away, just playing in the water, complete with a log for a play toy.  Luckily, the bear was initially facing away from me and making so much noise splashing that it didn’t hear my camera clicking away until it stopped splashing. With that, I was finally discovered, and the bear immediately headed for cover.

— Thanks For The Look —

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