THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512070129
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANELLE LA BOUVE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Joan C. Sawyer, who operates a stable on Jolliff Road, wasn't sure she understood the telephone call from her landlord.
A bear was chasing her horses?
``I went flying out the house,'' said Sawyer. ``At that point, the horses were running toward me. They were terrified. All four feet seemed to be off the ground just flying, tails flying, it was like they had found something and didn't know what they had encountered.''
George Martin was the first person to see the bear.
He left Wayne J. and Joyce M. Rountree's house and walked to her parents' yard.
Shortly thereafter, Martin returned to report that he had seen something black. At first he thought it was a dog, then decided it looked like a cow. Finally, he realized that the creature was a black bear.
Rountree, whose father owns the property where the bear has been hanging out, called her brothers. They gathered to check out the situation themselves.
``He's a beautiful black bear,'' Rountree said. ``We stayed our distance. We used binoculars and we made pictures, but we couldn't get very close.''
Once they saw the bear go up a tree when a child attempted to pet him.
When Rountree shared the news with her parents, Paul J. and Mildred Honey Moore, she got a ``you've-got-to-be-kidding response.''
The bear's visits occurred mostly around 7 and 3:30 or 4:30 p.m.
``He just takes his time, like he's not going anywhere,'' Honey Moore said.
On Election Day last month, the bear roamed around an old oil drum behind Jolliff United Methodist Church, which happens to be one of the city's voting precincts. Out of concern for the voters, those in the know began making phone calls about their guest.
``We called everybody: the animal shelter, police, the game warden and the zoo,'' Moore said. ``They all said they couldn't do anything until he did some damage or made a nuisance of himself.''
Estimates as to the size of the Virginia black bear range between 200 and 300 pounds.
Although she had not seen him for several days, Moore still checked the yard for signs of the visitor.
``He could be out there in the dark, and we can't see him,'' she said. ``He hasn't come that far over here, but, yes, I'm scared because I don't know what to expect. I have a grandson, 10, here after school every day, but I don't let him go out too far.''
Ruth Stafford thinks the bear is a ham.
``He came out and posed for WTKR-TV,'' said Stafford, who lives in Driver and is a member of Jolliff United Methodist Church.
``We've all been trying to stay away from him, but some have gone up as close as 12 feet,'' she said.
``We had a turkey dinner at the church (the first week of November) and I think he had a pretty good dinner out of the garbage. We don't want to feed him. Because we don't want him to take up residence.''
``This bear has taken up residence in the back yard of the church, which backs up to some woods,'' said the Rev. Won Un, pastor of the 230-member church. ``He stays around our picnic shelter and has eaten all our garbage and may be eating from the neighbors' garbage. We have tried every way in the world to get him out of the church's back yard, but nobody has been willing to do anything since he's not hurting anything.
``We call him our Christian bear,'' Un said. ``We hope he continues to be a Christian bear and stays good-natured. We don't know when something may happen to set him off.''
Un thinks the bear has been feasting on acorns from the church yard.
``I saw some hunters out there with their dogs,'' Un said. ``That's the reason the bear came out to begin with. I think they scared him out of his den. He stays a couple of hours at a time.
``He looks right at home,'' Un said. ``He's doing his little thing, eating acorns and having a good time out there,'' he said.
Now that the bear has become a television celebrity, church members and neighbors are afraid hunters will come looking for him.
``I am afraid the bear is doomed,'' Un said. by CNB