Bear Repellant

Like many homes in Florida, we have a pool with a screen enclosure. On one end of the enclosure, there’s a hedge, which screens the pool from the neighbors on that side. On the other end, there’s a large Bird-Of-Paradise plant, which serves the same purpose.

Unfortunately, our neighborhood backs up to a wildlife refuge, which means we are visited frequently by deer, and occasionally by black bears. On one occasion, I discovered one gourmet bear half-inserted into one of our garbage cans. “Bon appetit,” I muttered, backing away slowly.

A few months ago, I woke up and discovered that during the night, something had torn out huge stalks of our Bird-Of-Paradise plant, and spent the evening chewing on the soft tender ends. The plant is irreplaceable, standing nearly 10 feet tall. It would take years for a new one to grow that large.

So I did a little research on bear repellant. It seems there are only two varieties: The first is pepper spray, which is only used in the event of a bear attack. The second is electric fencing. I had no intentions of building an electric fence around my plant, so I hoped the bear wouldn’t come back.

Unfortunately, he did. For three nights in succession, each time tearing away large parts of the plant. But then, in a moment of clarity, I had an idea. That night, I went out and urinated on the Bird-Of-Paradise. I thought it might establish a territorial claim, or at the very least make the plant unpalatable. To my amazement, it worked. I pissed on that plant every night for a week, and never saw any sign of the bear.

But then I stopped, and days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. Two days ago, I found this:



Here’s a close-up, with a dollar bill to show the size of the stems the bear has been tearing off.



So I repeated the urine treatment and the bear hasn’t touched the plant.

If you’re interested, you can have a 4-ounce bottle of my Florida Bear Repellant for $3.99 plus shipping. Operators are standing by.