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Source: The Roanoke Times, Va.self storageAug. 23--One night more than a year ago, Garrett Thompson was in his garage when he heard a loud thump outside.His house in the King's Crest subdivision in Roanoke County is in a safe area without a lot of commotion, so he took a flashlight and went to investigate the noise. About 20 feet in front him stood a 400-pound black bear, rummaging through his garbage like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet.Thompson nervously shined the light at the confused creature as they looked at each other. Then he screamed, but it was the bear that ended up running away."He's a massive bear, but he's afraid of anything," he said.This wasn't the first time Thompson was visited by a furry nighttime guest, and it wasn't the last. For Thompson and many of his neighbors near Hanging Rock, black bear visits come with the mortgage. Every summer the animals arrive in droves. Sometimes it's more than one. Sometimes it's the same bear returning year after year for a late-night feast. Many of the bears seem to have memorized the nights before trash pickup, when hundreds of county residents unknowingly serve up a bear potluck at the ends of their driveways. In the morning, when trash litters their yards, the annoyance sets in.By far the largest complaint about black bears logged to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is related the animals' continual rifling of residents' trash cans. Though it's hard to gauge, the complaints may have hit a peak this year in Roanoke County, an area with a high black bear population."It has been a busy summer. I can't put a number on it yet, but it seems to be a busier year than usual," said Jim Bowman, a biologist with the state game department who handles complaints from Roanoke County.As residential communities have grown in Roanoke County, so has the black bear population, leading to an increase in encounters over the past few years.Complaints about bears in trash have been persistent enough this year that Roanoke County accepted a $10,000 grant from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to spend on bear-proof garbage cans. The bins will be made available, for a fee, to county residents who have grown tired of ursine encounters.The cost will likely be about $125 per household, and the bins could be available this fall, according to General Services Director Anne Marie Green.Green estimated that during bear season, her office gets two to three calls a week from residents about trash can break-ins. She said the bears seem to be making a comeback as humans encroach on their habitat. She said she hopes the new trash bins will help quell the complaints.The grant for the bins is the first of its kind in Virginia. Jaime Sajecki, leader of the game department's Black Bear Project, said they wanted to test of the success of the trash cans in Roanoke County because the area presents a unique challenge."The county itself is surrounded by a great bear habitat," she said.Since 2007, she has worked with the county on its black bear issues. Last year, made aware of the high number of bear encounters, officials from the state and the county met and the idea for the trash bins was born.Sajecki said that from 2001 to 2009 the black bear population grew about 9 percent statewide. Since 2009, a branch of the game department has been studying parts of Roanoke County to see if the population is continuing to increase. The study will take several years to yield results.Many people, including Sajecki, have the impression that the population has grown.According to Bowman, many of t迷你倉e complaints from Roanoke County come from communities along the lower slopes of Fort Lewis Mountain and the Interstate 81 corridor."We have received numerous calls from different residents primarily in the Glenvar vicinity this summer, while complaints last year were much more prevalent from residential communities closer to Hanging Rock and also south of Roanoke city," he said.Complaints also come in every year from more rural communities, such as those near Catawba, he said.Bowman concurred that Roanoke County residents' chief black bear complaint is the mess they make of trash bins. However, the complaints come so often and through so many channels that there is no comprehensive list recording the numbers.Not everyone complains about their beastly neighbors.Roanoke County resident Heather Alvarez lives in a two-story home nestled near woodlands in the Hanging Rock area, where she enjoys the peace and quiet of living away from the city. She lived in Miami for 30 years before coming to Roanoke County, and the first time she saw a bear stroll through her yard to get to her bird feeder it scared her to death. But after five years of routine bear visits every summer, she came to enjoy their company. Now she is a self-described black bear afficionado with bear trinkets and decor all over her house."I don't know what everyone is afraid of. Yes, they are a nuisance when they get in the trash," Alvarez said. "But we built into their backyard."Alvarez, who said she is interested in getting one of the new trash cans, said part of the reason her family moved to rural Virginia was to be around more nature and less concrete.The bears, deer and other wildlife that trek through her property are, she feels, unique to her home.Linda Watts, who has lived in the Bennett Springs area since 1998, has seen dozens of bears sniffing around her front porch over the years. Every summer, she and her husband go into "bear mode" and begin putting their trash in a shed and putting away the bird feeder, which Watts calls "bear popcorn."Watts said she is glad the county is taking steps to help keep the bears out of the neighborhood."If you've ever picked up trash and if you've got the money, [the trash bins] are a good investment," she said.Sajecki said the grant for bear-proof trash containers is more than just an effort to control litter.If bears don't think there is food, then they will stay away. This decreases other kinds of bear issues, like property damage.Black bears are not known for hurting people. Bowman said that if you see a black bear, the best thing to do is yell; they will usually run. Cats and dogs can even scare them off .Bowman said bears come to associate homes with feeding, and that it's best to break their habits early, while they still fear people.It is illegal to feed bears, and people can be cited if they have something on their property that repeatedly attracts bears and they do nothing about it.However, bears will continue to trek through residential neighborhoods for chow as long as anyone leaves garbage unattended, which is why the county and DGIF are pushing the trash can pilot program."I have interest in it, but the reality is I will bring the garbage in the garage," said Thompson, the King's Crest resident. "I don't feed the bears, but I don't mind having them. That is why I moved out to the county -- close enough to town, but to be near the wildlife."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Va.) Visit The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Va.) at .roanoke.com Distributed by MCT Information Services文件倉