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I live 1 mile from the southern edge of Waywanda park. My property butts against the Pequannock watershed.

The bears are thick as thieves around here. You've apparently never had an NBE. Near bear experience. We had 3 house invastion in the past 9 months. The bears have been becoming greater and greater pests.

I don't mind the occasional bear. I mind the fact that the bears routinely walk down the road on garbage pickup day and get the bags of the poor guy who put his trash out 15 minutes too early. Mention putting it out the night before to someone, and you'll get a deep belly laugh from them.

My neighbor who's completely re-building his house put up cameras all over his house that his daughter can examine them before exiting the home. She's 7, his son is under 2.

I exit slowly from the doors and look in all directions before I leave. One experience rounding the house and being so close you can smell the bear (less than 10 feet) cures you completely of any "bear innocence" you might have.

They may look cute and cuddley....until they threaten your children, your house, your animals and you, you simply won't have any understanding at all.

I think 52 or 60 is a good start. I hope some of them are from around here.

I'm west of you, in Wantage Twp. We definitely don't have as many bears here as y'all have in the West Milford area. Seems most of the complaints come from that area as well. We've had bears go through our back yard, and they tour the garbage cans also. We definitely have to be careful with the garbage. I have two guinea pigs, and I sure don't want a bear breaking into my house and hurting them. So, no. I don't have any illusions about bears. But we don't get a lot of them here. So long as we take them into account, we've had no troubles. We just like them. Same way we like beavers and hawks and groundhogs, etc. Not every sentiment has to make rational sense, thank God.

Good luck with your bear problems. I hope there's enough left over so I'll still see 'em on my fishing trips, like I usually do, or up in high point st. park, or down in hamburg, or some of the other out of the way places I like to go.