Black bear caught on camera roaming through Burke County

VALDESE, N.C. — A black bear has been spotted several times in Burke County.

The bear has torn up gardens and gotten into trash all over the town of Valdese. It even visited a retirement home.

Most recently, it was spotted at the walking trail right next to Valdese Elementary School. Class was out because of summer break, so there weren’t any children on campus when the bear was spotted.

Video shared by Josh Norwood with Channel 9 shows the black bear running across the field next to the school. The area is a couple blocks from downtown and has a walking track and a field children play on.

Less than a mile away, more photos taken of the bear showed it had gotten into several trashcans in town. Karma Harkey showed Channel 9′s Dave Faherty where the black bear tore into her trash can and then climbed up on her husband’s car and scratched it. She had her doubts until she saw a photo capturing the bear up close and next to her garage.

“I thought my husband was pranking me, and then he called, and I said there’s no way there’s a bear that close to our house,” she told Faherty.

Bertha Pearson lives at a retirement home across the street from Valdese Elementary. She and others there saw the bear moving down a walkway before darting across the street to a dentist’s office.

“I saw it on my porch and I tried to alarm everybody around here -- the bear’s out, the bears out,” Pearson said. “No, I wasn’t scared.”

North Carolina Wildlife estimates the bear weighs less than 200 pounds. They’re encouraging people to secure trash cans and bird feeders right now, hoping the bear will move out of the more populated areas of Valdese. They told people who see it not to feed the bear, and also suggested putting away pet food and bird feeders.

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