Cage failure

[H20fwler]

I hate it when I see a deer has nipped off the main leader. Usually it’s because I put to small of diameter cage around it.
I do the same with the chicken wire wrap to heighten the cages.
I’m am soooo glad we don’t have bears here!!! It’s bad enough we have bazillions of raccoons.
There are some bears in the southern part of the state but we shouldn’t ever get them up here it’s to open with all the farming.

 

[RGrizzzz]

Hunt them! If you don’t want to, I will

We do, but in the summer, there can be a lot of bears. PA has a very healthy bear population, and they'll travel far. It's nothing to see double digit different bears overs the course of a summer.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

The problem with bear, and bear hunters is, they always want to put out bait, which draws in many bear, the bear hunter then shoots the biggest bear, which usually aren’t the problem bears, it’s the teenagers. But the hunters now taught a bunch of bear that there is food here, and after the easy food is gone, they go after the apple trees, garbages, grills, etc..

And now after baiting, you no longer have a couple bear that wander through, you have many more that came in for the easy food. I have noticed now that late summer through fall, I rarely get bear damage anymore, because the bear are out in the bear and deer bait, sucking up the easy food. My tree damage now mostly happens early spring, before there is even apples, and early summer before hunters start baiting.

I came to the conclusion they will bust up or destroy 1-2 a year. Most times I will just cut off the broken branches and I will get lots of apples the next year. So the bear are doing the pruning. I have some ugly trees, but at least they produce.

Bingo. Successful hunting = baiting. Baiting on your property = more bears on your property. It'd be nice if more tags were available in a lot of these places and Id be happy to let other people do all the baiting and shooting at their spots.