American Black Bear Animal Signs

Notes:

About 1 AM, today, a large black bear came to one of our bird feeders and then up to the back deck of our house. I scared it off with a loud ship's bell that I keep in my den. This morning I wanted to do some animal forensics, so I scattered flour in the footprints to get some visual idea of size and stride. The height of the animal on all fours was about 4 feet, the paw prints were about 7"x9" and the walking gait was 2'x3'