Face to Face With a Black Bear. Or on the Game Cam, same thing...

Recently I've had a black bear getting into my trash at night.

It’s been making a huge mess.

Black bears are very common all over the world but attacks are rare. According to Mass Fish and Wildlife, only one in a million bears will actually attack a human and black bears only kill one person a year, and many times it's because of a dog being in the interaction and the owner trying to save it .

Many people don't know what to do if faced with a black bear and a lot of it may come as

common sense but the first thing is to make yourself appear bigger than you are and do not approach or turn away from the bear, turning away would show your vulnerability and the bear might attack. Instead you want to slowly back away while still facing the bear.

If the bear has cubs it makes the situation worse because now the bear sees you as a danger to her cubs, and she may attack to defend them. If you are around cubs you are the threat, and mother bears will send cubs up a tree to safety, and the bears will not leave until the threat is gone, which means you won't be able to scare the bear off. If you have bear spray on you make sure you only use it if the bear attacks because if you use it too early and the bear wasn't attacking, it just might decide to now.