The Civilized Black Bears of Asheville, North Carolina

Posted by Jeff on Oct 15, 2016 @ 11:10 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: October 14, 2016

Last summer, Colleen Boll was doing some work around the house when she heard her dog barking from a different room. “It was an interesting kind of bark,” she says, “so I looked out.” Right smack in her yard, pacing around inside her chain link fence, was an enormous, glossy black bear.

Boll watched the bear puzzle out how to hop the fence. “Eventually, it grabs the trunk of a tree and climbs over,” she remembers. “And I see the pipe at the top of the chain link fence bend way down under the weight of this huge bear. And then I realize, oh—that’s what all those little bends are, in all my fences all around my house.”

Boll doesn’t live deep in the woods. She lives in Asheville, the 11th most populous city in North Carolina, and increasingly well-known as both a hip travel destination and a great place to live. Over the past decade, Asheville has racked up all kinds of accolades: according to one list of fawning headlines, it’s “Fantastically Yoga-Friendly,” “One of America’s 12 Greatest Music Cities,” “The Biggest Little Culinary Capital in America,” “#1 Beer City USA,” and “America’s #1 Quirkiest Town.”

Somewhat more quietly, it’s also one of America’s Best Cities for Bears. They hang out near the local hospital, and at the storied Grove Park Inn. Mailmen regularly run into them on their routes. Last August, a bear broke into an Asheville man’s home and stole a stick of butter out of his kitchen trash. “I never saw a black bear until I moved to the city,” Boll says.

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