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Is it just us, or is this summer shaping up as a banner year for bears?

We're not talking about a lean stock market or the new Paddington book, either, but trash-raiding, picnic-basket stealing, Goldilocks-chasing, honey-munching, Only-You-Can-Prevent-Forest-Fires-promoting, big-pawed, long-toothed, cub-protecting, tree-climbing, willy nilly silly old bears. Bears are popping up everywhere from California hot tubs to downtown Fargo. You almost can't bank on getting away from them anywhere in North America, even if you're trying to get away from it all.

Holiday Island, a resort in Arkansas near Table Rock Lake, has become a popular hangout for black bears. The local fire chief, Jack Deaton, also leads the county's search and rescue teams. Whenever someone spots a bear, his phone rings.

"We've been averaging about two to three a day now for a little over two weeks," Deaton said. "A lady the other day threw some watermelon rinds out and (a black bear) was sitting in her flower bed, so they're not really scared of people. He's coming within 30 and 40 feet of people. He's quite comfortable."

Bearland

Summer in North America always means bear encounters, as the animals spend swimsuit season packing on pounds in preparation for a nice nap through the lean winter months.

Most encounters are as harmless as seeing a black bear loitering among the begonias. A Canadian study estimates 800,000 black bears and 60,000 grizzly bears roam North America. Although annual bear encounters must number in the thousands, few result in injuries.

Vancouver Island University's records show that while people filed 6,635 black bear complaints in British Columbia during 1995, from 1995 to 1996, bears injured seven people and killed just one.

With so many encounters, some attacks are inevitable. In May, a surveyor in British Columbia somehow survived a grizzly chewing on his head. And this June, an Oregon woman in a small town between Portland and the slopes of Mount Hood was injured by a black bear she caught rummaging through her garbage.

Official responses from the human side have been swift and — at times by necessity — lethal. Early in July, Yellowstone rangers put down a black bear that had gotten increasingly aggressive and fearless with park visitors. A few days later, an officer of the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDW) killed a black bear that charged after attempts to coax it into leaving a populated camp site failed.

Then there are the vigilantes: According to Minnesota's Star Tribune, someone illegally shot a male black bear in early June near the town of Ely. The bear didn't die, but a reward of $2,500 has been jointly offered by the Humane Society of the United States and the society's Wildlife Land Trust.

But things are far from hopeless on the bear-humans-coexistence front. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologist garnered widespread news coverage in early July for rescuing a 375-pound black bear from drowning. The bruin, nicknamed "Bear W007" by the FWC, had been tranquilized in a populated area outside Tallahassee. Possibly fleeing further darts, it ran straight into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately, W007's rehabilitation hit a snag when it was soon busted again, this time for loitering. According to the Northwest Florida Daily News, the brazen bear was caught "in a residential area" of Horseshoe Beach. Three failed relocations means the animal is headed for life behind bars. Rather than euthanize the bear, the FWC elected to find the bear a home at a zoo.

If one story from this summer illustrates humans' natural affection for bears, it was the mini-mob scene that broke out in Rockland County, N.Y., after authorities had chased a up a tree and were awaiting wildlife officials when a crowd of hundreds filled the area. Before the bruin could be tranquilized and relocated, police and emergency workers had to herd — and barricade — the onlookers, most of whom were school-age children.

"We were running from street to street, barricading streets, because we're dealing with a lot of kids," deputy sheriff Jacob Szpicek told the Journal News there. "All they want to do is see the bear."

A fed bear ...

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission biologist Ray Wigges has noted more bear reports as suburbs expand into wilder areas.

"If you move out into the woods, you're going to encounter wildlife," Wigges said. "If the birdfeeders weren't there, the bears probably would go away. Typically, these are small, young bears that mama's kind of kicked out; what I'd call a teenager; a two-to-three-year-old. Usually a male looking for a new habitat."

Holiday Island resident Robert Johnson, owner and operator of Fish of Excellence Taxidermy & Guides, was recently driving through town his wife when a bear crossed in front of his truck. A few days later, he found the same black bear — a lanky adult male — rummaging through his garbage can.

"It was the day before my trash goes," Johnson said. "It was his trash. He wasn't gonna run. I've never heard about any bears here and I've lived here over 20 years now."

Colorado authorities have had a multitude of boomerang bears to deal with lately. Randy Hampton, a spokesman for the CDW, said a recent drought hurt acorn production and a blight killed off a good deal of the area's berries.

Consequently, he said, "last year was probably one of the most significant years that we've seen in terms of bear-human conflict in (northwest) Colorado."

The drought has lessened in the northwestern part of the state, but mountain communities in places like Vale, Aspen and Steamboat Springs have begun building new homes on hillsides. This puts some homeowners between the valley and the elevations: precisely where most black bears call home.

In June, at least one Ouray, Colo., bear decided the stress was too much, wandered up to a Best Western and took a dip in the pool as guests watched with alarm.

Another classic complication comes from park visitors plying bears with snacks — the better for photo ops and close encounters.

A bear associating humans with food develops a sense of entitlement. While rangers put down aggressive animals as a matter of public safety, it's CDW policy to relocate "nuisance" bears that have only foraged for people's food without menacing humans.

Baloney breath, in and of itself, is relatively harmless, but as the saying goes around the CDW, "a fed bear is a dead bear."

The bear truth

A survey of news reports doesn't fully connect the dots, nor does it necessarily reflect an increase in bear activity, in the opinion of biologist and bear expert John Hechtel.

As he describes them, bears are neither psycho killers nor animated teddies, but rather "opportunists."

"Bear populations tend to not change dramatically or rapidly," said Hechtel, who began studying bears in Alaska in 1977. "I used to hear all the time, people would say, 'Bears are really up this year.' Bears have a really slow reproductive rate. They take care of their young for a very long time. It's not like some animals where you can get tremendous bursts in reproduction."

In all likelihood, according to Hechtel, any perceived spike probably results from a combination of things: Interest in bears generates a demand for print and Web articles, not to mention the sheer breadth of bear habitat in North America — in short, there's usually a bear encounter happening somewhere in the U.S. or Canada.

The more humans encroach upon bears' traditional living space, the greater the need for bear country residents to employ the strategies typically recommended to campers: Store trash in bear-proof containers, don't feed them and don't leave calorie-rich foods like pork chop bones in the grass.

"The only place for bears in the future," Hechtel said, "is where we let them live."