LELAND -- Priscilla Cogan had an uninvited guest show up and lounge around in her backyard, about a mile outside Leland.
It was big and furry, and left a mess all over the place. Good thing it was a black bear.
"It was exciting. It was a real privilege to see the bear," Cogan said.
Cogan and her husband spent about a half-hour last Sunday night watching the bear roam their property overlooking Lake Michigan.
"He was fascinated by the bench. He rested one paw on it, then the other. Then he rubbed his nose on it and then laid back and scratched," Cogan said. "He just hung out. To us, it was just delightful."
The visit wasn't all pleasure, though.
The night before, the bear destroyed a few bird feeders while scavenging for a free meal. He must have returned to look for more, Cogan said.
They'd taken down the feeders and intend to store them for a couple of weeks, time for the bear to mosey on to the next patch of woods.
"My fear is the bear may cross M-22 and go down to Lake Leelanau because I think the houses there are so much more bunched together," Cogan said.
It could be an endless buffet of bird feeders for the bear, she said, who likely wouldn't be welcomed among the cluster of homes.
"I'm worried somebody will get really scared and figure they have to shoot the bear," Cogan said.
Bear encounters are on the rise in northern Michigan. Just ask beekeepers in the region.
Larry Hilbert of Grand Traverse County's East Bay Township had some bear damage in late April at his beehives in Williamsburg. Six or seven hives were destroyed by a bear and each is worth about $150, he said.
"They pretty much eat everything but the wood," he said.
Bears crave honey, bee broods and wax, often ransacking hives to get the bounty. It's a problem beekeepers across the region must deal with more and more, Hilbert said.
"I've been doing this all my life and I'm the fourth generation. My father never had these problems. My grandfather never had these problems," he said.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials suggest the use of electric fences to deter bruins from busting into valuable beehives, used in the area to pollinate orchards and produce local honey.
Electric fences can help, but not always, Hilbert said.
"After a while, they'll just take a poke and go through it," he said.
Leelanau County beekeeper Bill Hathaway experienced bear damage in recent weeks.
The animals destroyed some of his bee hives west of Lake Leelanau and 20 killed chickens at his home north of Suttons Bay.
He could do without bears altogether, he said.
"The Lower Peninsula is no place for black bears," Hathaway said.
He wants the DNR to reimburse him for lost bees and honey revenues, and pay for an electric fence.
Hilbert's a bit more forgiving. The animals are "just being bears," he said.
DNR officials said there are more bears in Michigan than in past decades, with a current estimated population of 19,000, including cubs.
About 85 percent of them roam the Upper Peninsula, said Mike Bailey, species and habitat supervisor for the DNR's wildlife division.
"In the Grand Traverse area, it's probably fairly stable from our view ... but in localized areas they may be seeing more," he said.
The DNR extended the bear hunting season in Leelanau, Benzie, Grand Traverse and parts of Kalkaska counties by one week last year and intend to do it again this September.
It's an effort to reduce nuisance bears in the area.
The state annually sells about 12,000 bear hunting licenses and between 2,200 and 2,500 are killed each year by hunters.
Meanwhile, the DNR recently approved a management plan intended to protect black bears and also curtail conflicts they have with people.
Goals of the plan also include maintaining quality habitat and a sustainable bear population that supports hunting, recreational viewing and the "intrinsic value of knowing there are bears" in Michigan's woods, Bailey said.
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