Published: October 14, 2009 11:38 pm      

Mark Maynard: Bear Watch creates a stir: 10/15/09

Did you hear the one about the bear sighting last week?

Here’s how the story goes: I’ll not use full names to protect the innocent.

A friend (we’ll call her “Diane”) called an area high school principal (we’ll call him “Garry”) and told him she was looking out her back window and there was a bear sleeping in the back yard.

After getting off the phone, the principal, being pro-active because he knew where the friend lived, called the elementary school in his district to warn that principal about the sighting.

Later, someone — not sure if it was the same school administrator someone else who had gotten wind of the sighting — reported to the Boyd County Sheriff’s Department a bear was on the loose. The department was told someone saw a bear in the vicinity of this elementary school that shall remain nameless, again, to protect the innocent.

That same day, a friend called me while I was vacationing in St. Augustine to ask me if I’d heard anything about a bear wandering around Ashland.

I told him all I was seeing was sun and sand. Our pic-a-nic basket didn’t have any bears attached.

Some time later, the friend who started Bear Watch, called the principal again and said: “You do know I’m in Gatlinburg.”

Oops. Turn off the alarms.

Bear Watch is over.

In Gatlinburg, seeing a bear is about like seeing a dog around here. Bears, candy and the mountains: that’s Gatlinburg in a nutshell.

Of course, bear sightings around here aren’t unusual. We do have a bear population in Boyd County. A few weeks ago, in this very space, I wrote about Roberta and Genis Tipton seeing a bear and her cub wandering around in their back yard — and they live in the city limits. There was another bear-cub sighting around Marathon back in the summer (some surmise it may have even been the same ones).

So the principal who heard about the bear sighting was right in acting the way he did. The last thing we need is a bear coming down on an elementary playground and scaring the you-know-what out of everybody. I’m not sure a kindergartener’s sack lunch is enough for him anyway.

Bears come into areas like that for one reason: to find food. Those big boys sure do like to eat. Your unopened garbage can be like a five-course meal for them. Make sure your lids are packed down tight and don’t throw loose garbage in the yard unless you want some of these 500-pound visitors.

But I digress. Every story has a reason behind why it happened. And the moral of this story? Let sleeping bears lie.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.