THE SAWYERSPECTIVE: Five bear cubs born beneath Garrett home’s deck – Cumberland Times-News

An electrician who was called to a Deep Creek Lake area home this winter crawled under the structures deck to check the lines.

He came right back out and told the homeowners he would be back in the summer. When he got under there, he came face to face with a sow bear, said Harry Spiker, black bear project leader for the Maryland Wildlife & Heritage Service.

Each March, Spiker and his crews go to dens where they tranquilize radio-collared sows that have holed up to hibernate and give birth to cubs.

Thats what made this particular bear so different.

She wasnt collared, Spiker said.

Once the homeowners realized they had sub-deck company, WHS was contacted and Spiker put the bear on the den-check list. Still, there were a couple more surprises to come.

This bear had given birth to five cubs, four males and one female, Spiker said. That is only the second sow with five cubs we have encountered in all these years.

The final surprise, according to Spiker, was that he actually knew this bear. The sow was scanned and, sure enough, a microchip had been placed beneath her skin on the back of her neck.

Spikers gang had trapped and chipped this bear in 2015 because she had become a nuisance hanging around the Lakeside Creamery. Since then, she hadnt written, she hadnt called and now, here she was, 9 years old and the mother of five cubs. And, now she is collared so her telemetry signal can be detected.

When denned bears and cubs are discovered in proximity to humans, WHS moves them to a more appropriate wild location and places them in a den-like setting.

In this case, though, what Spiker described as a dog-house sort of structure was used.

It simulates a den with doors on two sides so the bears can go back and forth. Its about four feet square and three feet high. We put it in an appropriate place and take the bears to it. We always go back and check on them later and this group did fine.

Somewhat hampered by restrictions put in place because of the existence of the COVID 19 virus, WHS still managed to check all six bear dens on the list, one each in Frederick and Washington counties and four in Garrett County.

We cut our usual crews of six down to three so we could observe personal distancing, Spiker said. Also, I have always traveled to every bear den visit, but I stayed in Garrett County this year and the staffs stationed in Frederick and Washington took care of those trips.

The fact that only six dens were on the list this year instead of the usual 10 happened at the right time, considering the unusual circumstances, Spiker noted.

Before den season arrived, three radio-collared bears had been killed. One was taken by a Maryland hunter and another killed by a hunter in Pennsylvania where it had wandered. The third was an Allegany County bear on the Green Ridge State Forest that died from mange.

More than one sow preferred denning beneath a Garrett County deck this winter.

In the area of Wisp Resort, a sow slept and bore cubs beneath the porch of a home owned by someone from Pittsburgh.

They had been there a few times during the winter, but had no idea they had a collared bear until we told them, Spiker said. We always ask permission to remove a bear in that setting and nobody has ever said no.

That sow gave birth to three female cubs.

The other Garrett County sows were one in an excavated den west of Wisp Resort and one on the Potomac State Forest near Bethlehem Road under a rock covering.

The Washington County bear was on South Mountain and the Frederick County sow was not far off the boundary of the Frederick City Watershed.

In all, 20 cubs were born, split evenly between the two genders.

NATIVE QUEEN - A CELEBRATION OF THE HUNTING AND FISHING LIFE by Mike Sawyers

The average was 3.3 cubs per sow. Thats on the high end of the range we usually see, Spiker said.

Mike Sawyers retired as Cumberland Times-News outdoor editor in 2018. His column now appears every other Sunday. To order his book, Native Queen, a celebration of the hunting and fishing life, send him a check for $15 to 16415 Lakewood Drive, Rawlings, MD 21557.

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THE SAWYERSPECTIVE: Five bear cubs born beneath Garrett home's deck - Cumberland Times-News