While suspecting the bear is headed away from suburbanizing Warren County, Beatty wasn’t ready to say the area had seen the last of animal, believed to be a two-year-old male looking for a home range.
“It seems like it. You never know,” Beatty said. “He may be done with his wanderings.”
Residents reported several sightings — one captured on video — on June 9 and June 10 in the area between Waynesville and Springboro in northern Warren County. The bear was also spotted swimming the Great Miami River from Miamisburg to Franklin, west of Interstate 75, around this time, Beatty said.
Then about two weeks later, on Monday, June 22, the bear was reported on Countryside Lane in the Fieldstone subdivision in Springboro, police said.
On Wednesday, June 24, workers and patients at a dialysis center just east of I-75, on the edge of Springboro, reported a bear matching the description from the earlier sightings wander across the parking lot and back into woods leading into the city.
Springboro police had no other reports, nor were they able to confirm the sightings.
Since then, police in Clearcreek Twp. had three reports, two about 30 minutes apart on Saturday, June 27, near Lytle Five Points Road and Ohio 48. One caller reported their dogs chasing the bear, the other call reported the bear running through a cemetery, police said.
The final report, on Monday, June 29, was from residents on Red Lion-Five Points Road.
“They heard the bear groaning in the woods,” said Sgt. Wally Stacy of the Clearcreek Twp. Police Department.
Despite the numerous sightings, the bear has caused few problems.
“He maybe tipped over a trash can or two. Other than that, he’s been very well behaved,” Beatty said.
A century ago, bears were practically nonexistent in Ohio, due to hunting and destruction of wooded habitat.
Today, Ohioans should expect more and more bear sightings, as they expand their ranging in the state, Beatty said.
“People can survive, wildlife can survive, side-by-side,” he said.
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