Vt. guv has 'close encounter' with bears

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- A late-night encounter with four bears trying to snack from backyard birdfeeders gave Vermont's governor a lesson in what not to do in bear country.

One of the bears chased Peter Shumlin and nearly caught the governor while he was trying to shoo them away, he said Friday. "I had a close encounter with a bear, four bears to be exact," he said.

Shumlin, 56, a first-term Democratic governor, said he had just gone to bed inside his rented home on the edge of Montpelier late Wednesday when the bears woke him up. He looked out the window and saw them in a tree about 5 feet from the house trying to get food from his four feeders.

"I open up the window and yell at them to get away from the birdfeeders. They kind of trot off," he said. "I go around to the kitchen to turn the lights on and look from the other side, and they're back in the birdfeeders. So I figure I've got to get the birdfeeders out of there or they're going to make this a habit."

Shumlin said he then ran out and first grabbed two of the feeders. As he grabbed the other two and made his escape, "one of the bigger bears was interested in me." "It was probably 6 feet from me before I slammed the door and it ran the other way," he said.

Shumlin said he had part of the encounter on video, which he refused to release. "The lesson is as a Vermonter who grew up in this state and should know better, if you're going to feed birds at this time of year, bring your birdfeeders in at night," he said.

But Col. David LeCours, Vermont's chief game warden, said bringing feeders in at night won't make a difference because the bears will return to eat the birdseed on the ground. The Department of Fish and Wildlife urges homeowners to remove birdfeeders in the spring.