Although I have never seen one, I am fairly certain I have bear in my back woods which makes me pretty leery about walking out there by myself. I do take my dog with me and make noise, but as my rural area becomes more developed, there is less and less habitat for all the wildlife, bears included. My neighbor with a bit more woodland than I encounters the smaller black bears quite regularly, sometimes in his back yard or up in one of his fruit trees. He reports that the bears are as quick to beat an exit as he is, but I would be totally paralyzed and/or a screaming idiot if I ran across one.
