BELGRADE \u2014 Bears are on the move this time of year, and Wednesday morning a young black bear was moving through parts of Belgrade. Saddle Peak Elementary students missed drop-off time on the playground thanks to a bear being sighted in the nearby soccer fields. <\/p>\n
WATCH: Belgrade parents got an unexpected start to their Wednesday when a black bear decided to check out the soccer fields near Saddle Peak Elementary<\/p>\n
Bear loitering in parts of Belgrade<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is kind of bear season where they are out foraging, getting ready for winter, and occasionally they will come into town.\u201d Belgrade Police Chief Dustin Lensing says it doesn\u2019t happen often, but it does happen. <\/p>\n
His best piece of advice: \u201cWe don\u2019t want to stress out the bear, we don\u2019t want to put the bear into any sort of danger, we don\u2019t want to put people in danger, so really distance is key.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bears in neighborhoods have become a regular occurrence this year in parts of the Gallatin Valley. Fish, <\/p>\n
Wildlife and Parks has had numerous reports from parts of the Bozeman area. <\/p>\n
FWP\u2019s Morgan Jacobsen says that while Belgrade reports are not as common, they still happen, and there are things we can do to make sure these bears don\u2019t stay. \u201cPutting garbage out only on the day of pickup, putting bird feeders away, and making sure pet food is stored inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bear ended up in a tree in a neighborhood and was not acting aggressive towards people walking by. <\/p>\n
If it doesn\u2019t find human food, it may very well wander off and back into the countryside. <\/p>\n
Jacobsen notes that if it does become food-conditioned, the final outcome for the bear will not be so positive. <\/p>\n
Jacobsen notes this time of year food is the only focus for bears. <\/p>\n
\u201dThey sometimes spend as much as 20 hours each day eating as they are getting ready for winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief Lensing asks anyone seeing a bear in their area to report it, but also asks them to stay away so the bear has a chance to leave town in search of food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELGRADE \u2014 Bears are on the move this time of year, and Wednesday morning a young black bear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-850949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}