Black bears vanished from Ohio nearly 200 years ago. Now they’re making a comeback

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Over 1,500 bear encounters have been submitted to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) since 2022

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Brandan Smith stepped outside his house in rural Coshocton on a mild evening in mid July after hearing an unexpected sound outside. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed a huge, imposing figure in his driveway, sifting through the rubbish containers and cardboard boxes he had set out for collection the next day.

"I immediately turned around, went back inside the house and slammed the door," Smith recalled. "That image of something huge spooked me. And it just kind of dawned on me: It’s a bear."

Convinced that nobody would believe him without proof, Smith retrieved his mobile phone, summoned his courage and went back outside to capture the animal on video.

"Sure enough, the bear was still there, eating garbage," Smith said. "I’d just gotten done cleaning out the deep freezer, and it was into the old freezer-burned ice cream."

According to Smith, the animal appeared entirely unfazed by his presence, despite him standing merely 25 feet away. Uncertain of how to react, Smith contacted the police. He then observed the bear rummaging through his rubbish until a police car arrived half an hour later, driving the creature away with a powerful spotlight.

Having virtually vanished from the Ohio landscape in the mid-19th century, black bears may be staging a comeback. Over 1,500 bear encounters have been submitted to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) since 2022. Although most sightings occur in rural areas near Ohio's borders with West Virginia and Pennsylvania, black bears have been reported across 69 of Ohio’s 88 counties, with a few straying into more populated localities, including near Pataskala in Licking County in the year 2025.

Data from the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s 2026 Ohio Black Bear Monitoring Report shows that confirmed black bear encounters steadily grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s, levelled off in the 2010s, and then…

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