WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Salad bar for bears

Everything is getting so nice and green, it's beautiful in the woods this time of year! Naturalist Charlie Browne pointed out some yellow flowers that were blooming by a stream.

"These are a plant known as marsh marigold, or cowslips and they always grow in wet places. People can actually eat them, if they boil up the greens, but they're also a favorite food of bears. Bears emerging in the spring, once they're finished at your bird feeder, they are actually looking for the first vitamin rich green plants that emerge and those tend to be in wetlands."

"Bears are most likely to be in wet spots, in the early spring, and by later in the spring, Mom and the cubs that have been born in January and February are up in the highlands feeding on early mast crops, which a fruits and seeds and nuts of trees, other leftovers from last year, leftovers in the corn fields and that sort of thing."

"But this nice little salad bar is a favorite! It's very reliable, it's rich in vitamins, and they can load up on this stuff early in the spring, before there's a lot of other food available."

"Of course this is the time of year when we tend to get a lot of calls from people seeing them in their yards, and we all know that's usually because of bird feeders!"

"Bird feeders! If you still have your bird feeders up, take them down. You do not want to accustom bears to visiting your bird feeders, they'll keep coming back. They're smart animals, if they come in once, and find bird seed, they'll come again. You don't want them in your backyard."