HAMPSTEAD, N.C. (WECT) – It’s becoming an all-too-common occurrence in Hampstead: black bears strolling through neighborhoods.

“Somehow we got a bear, and they’ve been pulling trash, knocking trash over,” Hampstead resident Yolanda Webb said.

Her next-door-neighbor Julie McKinney agrees.

“If there’s one, there’s got to be more than one,” she said.

McKinney has lived in her home for ten years off Highway 17.

She said her family has never had a bear problem until this year.

“We would probably see them about, I don’t know, maybe once or twice, at least a week. It just depends on if we’ve got trash out,” McKinney said.

The bears have left scratches on her trash can.

McKinney said if it’s not her trash, it’s her neighbors.

“If it’s there, he’s coming for it,” she added.

Webb told WECT she fears for her safety.

“It’s just something you can’t even explain. It’s just scary. I mean, you know, just with that idea, if you walk outside your door what you might encounter. We have just been trying to put the trash in the storage house and try to keep it from finding any food or anything that we might have in the trash can,” she said.

Experts at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission said the big reason the bears are straying farther from their normal habitat is the construction and land clearing that has happened in the past year throughout the area.

As Hampstead grows, the bears have less land to roam.

It now has the whole community clawing for a solution.

“They need to come up with a way to keep them away from the houses and the elderly people,” community member James Hansley said.

So far, the bears have not hurt anyone in the area, but neighbors would like to find a solution before something like that happens.

NC Wildlife urges neighbors to visit this website on tips to avoid conflict with black bears.

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