Your bears run on the small side down there? 
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We don’t feed our bears.
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We givum tourists in Yellowstone … 
We were part of a bunch of tourists in Yellowstone watching a grizzly sow scurry around 100 yards below us. You never saw so many cans of pepper spray at the ready!
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I would bet that the bears could totally wreck an orchard. The raccoons do some damage the bears would do ALOT of damage.
A raccoon I guess got in my muscadine vine last night. He or she knocked off a bunch of still green grapes. Thats the bad thing about these varmints they not only eat a few but they destroy plenty. Well, I sort of put an electric fence around the vine using old aluminum arrow shafts. Didn’t someone say that aluminum doesn’t conduct electricity? Hmmm.
Why whenever I go somewhere my camera always display “Charge the batteries”? Haven’t been able to figure that one out yet. Bad luck, I guess. 
Mama never said I was very smart…,.
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We had a bear climb the 6 foot welded wire fence and strip our espalier Rubinette apple, then climb back out. The only damage I recall is the 6 foot fence was bent down to 3 or 4 feet.
The apples were no good that year anyway and the bear left the Goldrush espalier alone 
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Aluminum is a good conducter of electricity and is often used for electric transmission lines because it is lighter than copper. I have an electric fence to keep raccoons away from my grapes, and it works perfectly. I use a special wire designed for electric fences but don’t know much about it because it was given to me. I just checked on the Web and read that aluminum electric fence wire is very common.
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I haven’t read the thread, but here’s my 2 cents: I get great results from a large “Hav-a-Hart” trap. Various baits work, but I’ve settled on feed corn. I just buy a big bag. Sometimes I catch a woodchuck or a squirrel or a skunk. I also use the corn in a Squirrelanator (sp?).
This year I’ve captured 10 raccoons, 8 males. In prior years, I’ve often had 12. Without the traps, I’d have much less fruit.
Edit: This is not a joke. After writing the above message, I walked out into the backyard to find #11 waiting in the trap. Early in the season, I caught big adults. The last two have been small.
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My raccoons eventually ripped out the step on plate and made it unusable. I had to build an alternative trip mechanism. I also had to reinforce the sides after they bent them so much they could get passed the closed door. Unfortunately I haven’t found any stronger have-a-hart type traps.
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This morning, I saw 2 squirrels running from the muscadine vine about 7:30 A.M. So, it was not raccoons that was getting the dines. Of course, the electric wire did not stop them. Could see the additional damage.
Guessing that I will be at the vine at first light tomorrow with the 20 gauge. On the other hand, I do have a couple of old cage type traps. Would Starkist Chunk Light Tuna do as bait?
That’s right…they are brutal! They rip the cages apart if they have enuf time and teeth. I’d give you some details on my coon trapping, but my last thread on poisoning squirrels and chipmunks caused too much of a ruckus here.
I used bread and pnut butter. Great success over the years. 15 to 25 coons a year. But I have not trapped coons this season. Too busy, to lazy. Used to have 3 traps going every night. But feed corn may be the ticket to easy baiting and all. The pnut butter is a pain doing 3 cages every night. The birds eat it if the coons don’t. And ants eat the pnut butter off the bread.
Tried a Squirrelanator…no luck. Brought it back for refund. Too pricey for a paperweight that may not work for me. I mean they look like they work, but they are not the right option for me. We got loads of voles and chipmunks. I use rat traps and pnut butter for them.
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Got this trap off of Amazon a couple years ago pretty heavy duty and works well if you bait it properly. Got lazy on my trapping this year. I lost all my pears. I plan on very aggressive trapping and the use of baffles next season. We will see.
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Unfortunately, each species requires a different trap. I manage to catch as many as 80 squirrels per year (total) in my two squirrelanators. But I have a big hav-a-hart for raccoons, as well as a very small trap for chipmunks. Woodchucks here are very wary so I have to pick them off with a pellet gun.
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My advice would be to trap March through November. Fewer raccoons is fewer raccoons. I catch most of mine in spring.
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I do plan on starting late February early March. To do it now is just a waste of time for me, more are just gonna move in from the surrounding area. They come from near and far to eat the crayfish around my pond. I’m still struggling with what to do with them. Currently I’m transporting about 15 to 20 miles but it’s a pain. I hate killing anything unless I’m gonna eat it. I am still looking for someone in my area who wants to take them off my hands and make a meal of them.
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My small chestnut crabapple had 20 apples on it 2 days ago. Today it had 2. Spent the day netting what the creatures didn’t destroy and getting my traps set up again.
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You would not believe the length I’ve had to go to to kill rats around my outbuildings and not harm raccoons. I have used wood , I’ve used PVC pipe, concrete blocks and spent hours building rat feeding stations. Finally got a design that seems to work . It involves creating a tunnel with a minimum of four cinderblocks Tied together. One or two additional cinderblocks on top for weight. The rat poison is in a stick form and is tied at the end of the tunnel to a piece of plywood .
After you trap them, throw the cage in your pond and let the crayfish eat them. Win, win. 
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That’s really cruel…
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The wink & crazy face emoji, was supposed to be a tip off that I wasn’t really being serious.
Maybe Muscogee/Creek.
Our family farm, in east-central AL was bordered on the south side by Saugahatchee Creek, which flowed through my hometown of Opelika (meaning ‘Big Swamp’ in the Muscogee language) AL.
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