Sandy paw prints and cranberry poop: Troopers catch proof of bears on NC beach
Contrary to what its name suggests, Bear Island in North Carolina is not home to many bears.
But the wild animals do occasionally pass through.
Hammocks Beach State Park troopers tracked a young black bear across the barrier island on Friday using paw prints in the sand and scat he left behind, according to a Facebook post.
But one commenter said it looked more like cranberry salad than bear poop.
“Based upon its scat we can safely assume the animal is having a “berry” good time at Hammocks Beach!!” the post states.
Bear Island is a four-mile stretch of undeveloped beaches and forests that make up the state park, according to its website. Officials with the park said they see “evidence” of small bears traipsing across the island once in a while, but they never stay long.
They mused this one is likely a young bear looking for his own territory.
A park ranger spotted the first black bear on the island in more than a decade in 2013, the Daily News in Jacksonville reported.
Paul Donnelly, the park’s then-superintendent, said the lack of food and water makes it an uninhabitable spot for the bears that end up there, according to the newspaper.
That resource scarcity is where its original name — Bare Island — comes from.
“Donnelly said the history is that an early map maker changed the spelling to Bear Island to match the nearby mainland community of Bear Creek,” according to the newspaper.
The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge next to the Outer Banks is home to one of the largest concentrations of bears in the Southeast, the Charlotte Observer previously reported.
It’s about 100 miles north of Hammocks Beach.
Police in the Outer Banks town of Duck alerted visitors and residents to a bear walking on the beach in 2018, and two anglers in Dare County caught a 350-pound bear casually swimming in the sound on video earlier this year.
“Both instances proved North Carolina’s black bears are capable of swimming to the islands — either voluntarily or pushed by coastal storms,” the Observer reported.
This story was originally published December 9, 2019 at 3:55 PM.
