Tag: Bear sighting

Jevon Butler was out for a bike ride near the Tucker Road Community Center in Fort Washington, Maryland, when he had a close encounter with a black bear.

The eighth grader was near the archery range near Bock Road, which backs to a wooded area, when he said he stopped to check his phone. And that’s when he had an odd feeling.

“I heard leaves moving,” but, “the day was not windy at all.”

Then, he told WTOP, he saw it.

“A black bear had popped out” of the woods and was looking at him, he said.

“It was, I would say, 500 feet away from me, then when I had made eye contact with it, it just started chasing me,” he said.

Butler, 13, said he hopped on his bike and was riding up the hill on Bock Road.

Butler said after some time, he saw the bear turn back and amble off into the woods. He said the cars along Bock Road had slowed down: “I’m guessing they had seen it too.”

Black bears may look slow and heavy, but they can achieve bursts of speed of up to 35 mph.

“Sadly, I didn’t get to get any photos — because I wasn’t thinking of that,” he said.

His grandmother, Sherry Ponder, told WTOP that Butler raced home to tell her he’d been chased by a bear. She was, at first, skeptical.

“I was like, come on son, come on, are you sure?” she joked.

Maybe, she thought, he’d just seen somebody’s big black dog running loose? But as he repeated the details of the story, Ponder said she decided to report a bear sighting.

“Because when he came in the house, he was shaking,” she said.

Gregg Bortz, the media relations manager with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said they did hear from Ponder about the sighting, but haven’t had any other reports and “at this time, we can’t confirm anything.” However, Bortz noted, “a black bear roaming in that area would certainly be possible.”

Bortz explained that in late August, a black bear sighting was confirmed in Nanjemoy, about 26 miles away.

In May, a black bear was spotted in a Prince George’s County neighborhood and was relocated to Western Maryland.

That same bear then turned up in Herndon, Virginia, in mid-June before he was once again tranquilized and relocated to another, more suitable location. That bear was dubbed “Elden,” memorialized with a proclamation and adopted as the new mascot for the Town of Herndon’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Bortz said Maryland’s DNR advises anyone with questions about black bears to visit their website, Living With Black Bears or consult the website BearWise.org

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