Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\nIt was the sighting that had Rita Baxter calling her neighbor for a ride to finish her morning walk. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was headed home; this bear comes out of the field, he sits down and looks at me, and I stop and look at him and just started backing up. My voice is saying, \u2018don\u2019t run, don\u2019t run,\u2019\u201d Baxter said. <\/p>\n
She said she wasn\u2019t afraid and the bear didn\u2019t seem aggressive. <\/p>\n
\u201cI started backing up slow and took his picture, and he took off the other way,\u201d Baxter said. <\/p>\n
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She grabbed a few videos from her neighbor\u2019s car. <\/p>\n
Turns out the bear Baxter saw Tuesday along Foust Road near US-35 and Bickett Road was a black bear. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like a young male, so probably a 2-year-old male,\u201d Brett Beatty, Wildlife Management Supervisor with ODNR, said. <\/p>\n
He has been on ODNR\u2019s radar for a few days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve kind of been tracking this, what I assume is the same bear, for about a week or so,\u201d Beatty said. <\/p>\n
Beatty said ODNR has had reported or confirmed sightings twice near Hillsboro last week. <\/p>\n
One east of Wilmington on Saturday, six miles southwest of Jamestown on Monday, then Tuesday morning in Xenia Township. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s typical for behavior of a 2-year-old male this time year; bears of that age, they\u2019re separating from their mother. They\u2019re out trying to find their own territory, maybe a mate, and they\u2019re just roaming,\u201d Beatty said. <\/p>\n
Beatty said black bears are native to Ohio and young ones can roam 10 to 15 miles a day. <\/p>\n
ODNR will monitor his trip. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as he\u2019s not chasing anybody, threatening somebody or anything like that and keeps moving and minding his own business, we\u2019re gonna let him keep on moving,\u201d Beatty said. <\/p>\n
After Baxter spotted him on a trek of her own, she won\u2019t soon forget. <\/p>\n
\u201cThought it was cool. I walk every morning; I look for skunks, raccoons, coyotes, deer. Never in my wildest dream would I dream that I would walk up on a bear, and he probably felt the same way,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
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