Bear necessities, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

It was nearly sun down as I recall, and I had been stalking it for days.
The beast kept reappearing in backyards, destroying bird feeders, and
thrilling homeowners who were used to seeing the usual songbirds out
their picture windows. And then it appeared - not at the feeders, but
right outside her kitchen door, in the screened porch!

On and off for most of the week I had been chasing scanner calls for
reports of a black bear making appearances all around the town of
Lunenburg, Mass. It was 1996, and I was the chief photographer at the
Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper in neighboring Fitchburg. Scanners were
our way of knowing what was going on in the world around us.

After a few days of "wild goose chases," listening to homeowners'
stories about the four-legged creature, I had still not seen the bear,
but I knew what it looked like and I know how they behave. I had
photographed bears while working in Minnesota years ago. They roamed the
dumps and shorelines of the lakes in northern part of the state, in
search of leftovers, or a dead fish.

I was sitting in the newspaper office around supper time when a scanner
call came across of a black bear near busy Route 13 in Lunenburg.
Traffic was keeping it from crossing the highway, and police were
dispatched to stop traffic. I drove as fast as I could, but it had
already crossed on it's own by the time I arrived.

Rather than follow the cruisers as they patrolled the wooded
neighborhood, I stopped at a home where it had appeared before. Bears
hunt for food in patterns, and often return for seconds at a productive
dining spot. The homeowners had bird feeders lining their backyard, and
this bear had already destroyed one of them. I got out of my car in
front of the house and waited. It was getting dark and I was supposed to
be home eating dinner with my family. But my adrenaline was pumping and
I had an inclination something was going to happen for me.

Back then I was shooting with a Nikon F4 film camera and an 80-200mm
f/2.8 zoom lens. I had two rolls of Fuji 800 in my pocket and one in the
camera. The scanner was quiet and I didn't think anybody was home. I
stood in the street awhile and then slowly walked toward the back yard
to check the feeders. I had about 45 minutes of usable light left.

Just as I rounded the back corner of the home, I thought I saw something
in the woods across the yard. Sure enough, it was the bear. But this
time it didn't seem interested in the feeders. It was heading toward the
house! I didn't have a cell phone back then, so I ran to the street and
flagged down a cruiser in front of a neighbor's home. Soon there were
neighbors and police standing in the side yard watching the bear.

It was sitting in the middle of the back yard as if waiting to be
served. What no one understood was what it smelled. There was a
clothesline running from the second floor porch window, to a tree. On
it, right above me, were several bags filled with suet balls. I watched
in amazement as the bear climber up on an upside-down row boat next to
the garage. It hopped onto the garage roof, walked across, and entered
an open screen window to the porch. After shooting up the first two
rolls, I reloaded my last one as the bear stayed hidden in the porch.

It was almost dark now, and I walked to the front door of the home to
see if anyone was there. To my surprise, an older woman answered the
door and I told her about the visitor she had inside. She had no idea
and quickly shut the front door. Oops! It locked behind her. Now the
bear was inside all by itself and she was in the yard with me. Quickly
returning to the back of the house, we watched as the bear looked out
her porch window. I motioned to the police to come to my side of the
house. My heart was racing as I photographed the bear reeling in the
clothesline. Onlookers clapped as the bear popped the suet balls into
its mouth, and disappeared back inside the porch. I was out of film and
it was dark.

I raced back to the paper and souped my film, while telling my story to
the newsroom staff that evening. We ran it with a story on the front of
our paper. I also sent a photo to the Associated Press, and the picture
ran in many newspapers across the country, as well as Newsweek. The bear
was famous now!

Unfortunately in this populated area, bears are not welcome. Just a week
later the beast appeared in downtown Fitchburg and made a scene. SWAT
teams surrounded it in front of a girls homeless shelter and fed it a
dozen jelly donuts before it got sick and was tranquilized.
Massachusetts wildlife officials transported it to the western part of
the state to find a new home.

-Bob Hammerstrom