Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 19, 1991                   TAG: 9104190546
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV15   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: HIAWASEE                                LENGTH: Medium

IRISH MOUNTAIN RESIDENT BEARS THE COMPANY OF FURRY VISITOR

"I stayed up till 2:30 in the morning, and the bear was sitting there on his tail," said the woman, 86.

"I just said, `I'm going to sleep; you be out of here by daylight.' He was gone when I got up."

It was the second night in a row the bear had come snooping around her isolated, rural home on Irish Mountain in southern Pulaski County. Having lived there most her life, her closest neighbor a mile away, she isn't afraid of much.

"I wouldn't have been so nervous if I'd known it was an old black bear," said Simpkins, who lives alone. "They're harmless." But she said the color and size of the beast fooled her into thinking it was a brown bear, generally more aggressive and dangerous than black bears.

Mack Walls, a state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologist stationed in Marion, said brown bears don't exist in Southwest Virginia. At this time of year, however, encounters with black bears aren't unusual.

"The bears start to roam a little bit, because they're coming out of their dens looking for something to eat." Berries, fruit and other natural bear foods are "slim pickings" right now, he said.

A bag of chicken feed and empty cat food cans on the back porch may have attracted the bear, Walls said. He said people can deter bear visits by keeping food and garbage out of smelling range - and putting electric fences around beehives, since bears love honey.

"The biggest thing not to do is to corner one of these animals," Walls said. Bears will run until cornered, but since they can weigh 100 pounds or more, they can hurt a person when they do try to escape.

Simpkins said she never thought of using her gun to frighten her visitor away. "You know it's against the law to kill any of them."

She's never shot at any animal - not even the cougar that comes around every once in a while. The gun, she said, is for "two-legged bears."

Simpkins said the bear did not return Tuesday night, but she was going to keep an eye out for him.

The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is trying to reintroduce black bears to Southwest Virginia, Walls said, and many of them seen in this region may be trying to get back home to the Shenandoah Valley.